Curiosity-driven research may suffer as a result of the government’s “laser-focus” on growth.
The Jodrell Bank Observatory was a major talking point over the summer, as news broke that the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) would not renew its funding for the UK’s network of radio telescopes, e-Merlin, with Jodrell Bank’s Lovell Telescope at its heart. Given the 2025 spending review’s record investment in UK Research & Innovation (UKRI), it’s easy to wonder why such a headline-grabbing cut was forced to take place.
UKRI published its five-year plan for funding allocation in December 2025. Of its total £38.6bn from the Department of Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST), only 38% is directed towards curiosity-driven research, with the majority of the remainder spent on strategic priorities and supporting “innovative companies”. Breaking down further the funding for curiosity-driven research, the largest beneficiary by some margin is the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the remit of which lines up very closely with many of the same strategic priorities set out in the UK’s modern industrial strategy (MIS): advanced manufacturing, digital and technologies including artificial intelligence and quantum technology, and clean energy.
The MIS states that it has chosen sectors to prioritise based on their potential to “drive growth and create well-paid jobs” which, while reasonable for an industrial strategy, causes some controversy when used as the focus of a research strategy. The result of this prioritisation is that bodies such as the STFC, or the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), receive significantly less funding from UKRI, with the combined funding of the STFC and the AHRC being less than half of that received by the EPSRC. This then results in cuts such as that to e-Merlin.
Professor Graham Woan, leader of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Group at The University of Glasgow, called the policy “remarkably short-sighted”. He says that the STFC “has been put under severe financial pressure by UKRI. As a result, productive and world-leading UK facilities and instrumentation, including e-Merlin, are set to be scrapped or squeezed so hard they can barely function.”
He goes on to say that the “government seems to regularly forget the role fundamental science plays in developing new technologies”, citing the World Wide Web of CERN, and the “pioneering AI work” in the development of neural networks in astronomical data analysis (data from e-Merlin has been used in such projects).
Furthermore, he says, “the frustrating irony is that it’s a sudden realisation in Government that this work was important that is draining money from the fundamental research processes that helped produce it.”
The University has previously benefitted from STFC funding, including over 30 Impact Acceleration Account projects worth a combined £500,000. Professor Sheila Rowan, director of the Institute for Gravitational Research at Glasgow, said in 2021 that “STFC funding has been vital in enabling our work and the work of our partners in gravitational research across the UK, which has been and continues to be vital to the international LIGO collaboration.”
The impact of government prioritisation extends also to postgraduate students’ finances. The TechFirst scheme, announced in 2025, features a £10,000 bonus to the stipend of PhD students studying in “priority technology areas”. The University is taking part in this scheme, which will benefit students of engineering, biology, robotics and AI, photonic sensing, applied quantum technology, and algebra, geometry and quantum fields. This comes while the standard stipend for a PhD student in academic year 26/27 falls 17% below the annualised living wage.
In the 2026 July reshuffle, BIST was created, merging the formerly distinct departments of science, innovation and technology, and business and trade. This is the first time since 1964 that the secretary of state responsible for science has not also had a responsibility for higher education. The role of minister of state for artificial intelligence was also created in this reshuffle, held by Kanishka Narayan.
Speaking at Farnborough International Airshow in July, Secretary of State for BIST Jonathan Reynolds said: “This government is laser-focused on bringing good growth to every corner of the country, and we’re wasting no time getting on with the job.”
“Partnerships like [aerospace at Farnborough] show the power of bringing business and innovation together to harness our strong manufacturing base and cutting-edge research to support skilled jobs right across the UK.”
The press release attached to this statement calls for “growth by commercialising science and innovation”. Unfortunately for Jodrell Bank, and for curiosity-driven research nationwide, this commercialisation seems to extend mainly to first-order contributors to growth. Manchesterism will not save that iconic piece of the Cheshire landscape.
