The STFC Cuts
News came out yesterday of the results of the latest funding prioritization exercise by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). The total savings being made by cuts to astronomy and particle physics are less than the funds allocated to just one AI lab! It seems STFC has to bear the brunt of savings needed so that UKRI, the organization under which STFC sits, can gamble much more on Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Technology. It seems to me that these are two bubbles ready to burst and the decision to sink money into them is not only unwise, it places the UK science base at serious risk of collapse.
Anyway, you can find the list of specific cuts here. Radio astronomy is hit particularly hard. The interferometric network e-Merlin is not prioritized and its funding will run out in 2028. That puts Jodrell Bank Observatory in danger of complete closure unless an alternative source of funding can be found. The last time STFC had a financial crisis was in 2009 and e-Merlin might well have been cut then but survived thanks to political intervention at the highest level. I suppose that could happen again, but I wouldn’t bet on it. More bad news is that the UK Square Kilometre Array Regional Centre, with SKA itself already financially troubled, is also earmarked for cuts.
And that’s just radio astronomy and Jodrell Bank is one of the highest-profile casualties. There are cuts and cancellations in many other areas too; see here for a full list.
The Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Catherine Heymans, has used her platform to campaign against these damaging and short-sighted cuts to UK astronomy, including on social media:
The same can’t be said for the Astronomer Royal herself, Prof. Michele Dougherty. The reason for that is Prof. Dougherty is also Executive Chair of STFC and is therefore responsible for implementing the cuts. How it is possible for her to remain in both posts is nothing short of a scandal. Such a glaring conflict of interest cannot be allowed to stand. Indeed, Prof. Dougherty was elected to serve as President of the Institute of Physics from October 2025 but stepped down in January 2026 citing concerns of a conflict of interest with her role at STFC. It’s a slap in the face to the Astronomy community that it is not deemed worthy of such consideration.
In the Dark 
July 28, 2026 at 7:14 pm
I’ve recently realised the extent to which the Prime Minister has a monopoly of power while he or she is in Number Ten. There used to be such a thing as Cabinet government, but today the function of a Cabinet Minister is no more than to enact the PM’s policy and to act as a lightning rod and resign it if goes wrong.
Which is a necessary preamble to my point. If Andy Burnham thinks these cuts are bad, they won’t go ahead. I urge our scientists to write to him directly, and to write to their MPs asking them to contact him (not just the Science Minister). He has come in on a wave of goodwill after Starmer – whom I thought of as a dalek – and so far he has made some good decisions and public comments.
July 28, 2026 at 9:33 pm
It’s hard to know where to start with this. STFC seem to expect gratitude that PPAN will be cut by “only” 2.7% by 2030. But that’s in a context where the cash going to UKRI is set to rise by 12.5% over the same period. So that’s a 15% real terms cut. The money is going to AI (maddening, as astro has been a pioneer in the use of AI). That’s a headline government priority, and one you can’t expect Burnham to alter. But even more frustrating is that no-one is talking about the roughly factor 2 cut in grants since 2023. If the community can’t get most of that restored, we’ve had it.
July 28, 2026 at 10:32 pm
As an outsider it looks like UKRI has just gone rogue and decided to raid STFC for funds for AI that are really small potatoes compared to what the big corporations are throwing at it.
July 29, 2026 at 9:20 am
I think its actually good for EPSRC to invest in AI – at least the proposals will be subject to peer review and I would trust universities to do a better job on AI than many companies. So I don’t think its a case of either/or, but rather doing both – i.e. also maintaining investment in PPAN research areas. I do think a major issue is that STFC is not just science but also facilities – many of which are mainly used by researchers outside PPAN ! There should either be a separate facilities council (like the old CCLRC before it merged with PPARC to form STFC), or move PPAN science to EPSRC.
July 29, 2026 at 10:14 am
What does it actually mean to ‘invest in AI’? The Alan Turing Institute was supposed to be the UK national effort, but it failed to give the government the heads-up that was part of its purpose when effective LLMs suddenly appeared earlier this decade. As a result it suffered a major downgrade that caused it to fall, predictably, into internal recrimination and bickering. (See its Wikipedia page and work out what had to be going on underneath the water.)
Ther is only room for a few large competitor LLMs. Is the UK going to set up its own Claude etc, and what makes it think it can overtake – and stay better than – the Americans and the Chinese?
July 29, 2026 at 10:51 am
The Turing Institute is a complete shambles and I wouldn’t bet against any new institutes ending up the same way.
July 30, 2026 at 10:33 am
[…] at the back of my mind for some time, but they came to the front again with the recent news about cuts to STFC funding. The callous attitude shown to the UK astronomy research community, implying that it should be […]
August 3, 2026 at 2:23 pm
This whole funding mess is actually provoked by the scandalous cost of the international subscription to CERN, currently around 165 million pounds a year. If that wasn’t expensive enough, the UK get only around 50% return in this investment. We pay in 15% of CERN’s budget yet have around 8% of staff posts, I’m one of them. Our industrial return has been as low as 30% and is currently around 50%. This adds up to around 80 million a year net loss of UK science funding and has been running at around the same level since STFC was created. That’s well over a billion pounds gone from UK science for ZIP. Michelle Dougherty has simply inherited this financial mess from ALL of her male predecessors as STFC DG’s. It’s long past time this mess was sorted out and that money goes to UK facilities.
September 4, 2026 at 2:48 pm
[…] Three days ago the latest Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Andy Burnham, gave a commitment to rescue Jodrell Bank Observatory from the threat of closure resulting from funding cuts at the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). […]