UK science funding changes leave researchers facing pauses, cuts and uncertainty

The UK science ecosystem is in limbo. On 1 February, the country’s national science-funding agency, UK Research and Innovation, announced large changes to how research grants will be judged and awarded. Medical, biological and physical research will see pauses in major grant programmes, while a good dose of uncertainty about what, how and when the funding will be cut is leaving the UK research community anxious.

The UKRI open letter states an aim to “focus and do fewer things better”. Support for curiosity-driven research will be preserved, it says, and investment in applied research will be aligned with the government’s industrial strategy. The potential consolidation of money into bigger research groups threatens to stifle the development of original ideas and future leaders, and an undetermined period of research down time, which could last for at least one year, is disruptive for all scientists.

Since April 2025, UKRI has allocated about £9 billion (US$12 billion) of public money to projects. Funding opportunities from the Medical Research Council are currently closed, with applications under review, for projects in infections and immunity, molecular and cellular medicine, neurosciences and mental health and population and systems medicine — that is, most of the council’s remit. The Science and Technology Facilities Council, which funds particle physics, astronomy and space research, is already closing some projects, in part because its budget has run into the red owing to high energy costs.

The head of UKRI said the slowdown would be temporary and that the country will have “fully transitioned to the new model by the start of the 2027 and 2028 financial year” — that is, April 2027. For freshly appointed faculty members, who might have a three-year probation period, it is a serious, potentially career-ending blow. For postdocs and technical staff members employed through grants, it could mean a pause in salary.

The funding changes come as science leaders argue that science is built on failure in several ways and that research is funded, communicated and rewarded mainly on the basis of successful results. There is little room in the research system to recognize what might be considered work in progress, or to avoid penalizing people if things go wrong. On 16 April, the European Research Council announced that unsuccessful applicants for its grants are being discouraged from reapplying in the subsequent year, a measure introduced to help the organization cope with a rise in applications.

Innovative publishing formats such as Registered Reports are intended to promote methodological rigour instead of focusing on results, but such innovations are still too few and far between. Research papers, grant applications and CVs don’t usually include the experiments or projects that didn’t work out. This failure of the research enterprise to provide the time and space for individuals to fail without fear of the consequences risks failure of a grander kind.