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Can commercial funding fill a hole of £42 million (US$56 million) a year in the finances of some of the United Kingdom’s flagship science laboratories and facilities?
That is the challenge facing sites run by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), which funds the Diamond Light Source — the national synchrotron facility in Harwell — as well as other scientific instruments and labs.
The UK government has said that all STFC-funded sites must raise money to cover more of their own running costs, or risk closure.
The remodelling comes amid an overhaul to UK public research funding in line with the government’s strategic priorities, and during a rocky period for UK science. The country’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham, has merged the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology into a larger Department of Business, Innovation, Science and Trade. Patrick Vallance, a clinical scientist popular among research leaders, resigned as science minister on 20 July. Chemical engineer Chris McDonald, a member of the UK parliament who had a prior career in industry research, was appointed to the role on 24 July.
Nature looks at where the cuts stem from, how facilities in other countries generate income and whether it is feasible to make up the shortfall in this way.
Why are there cuts when UK science is promised a record budget?
The Labour government, led by former prime minister Keir Starmer until 20 July, promised that the budget for the country’s main research funder, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), would grow from £8.8 billion in 2025–26 to £10 billion in 2029–30. But under this plan, cash for ‘curiosity-driven research’ — meaning mostly that led by individual researchers through grants — would stay roughly flat. By contrast, spending on strategic government priorities, such as artificial intelligence, supporting businesses and investing in talent and infrastructure, including computing resources, would receive most of the increase. AI is slated to get more than £1.6 billion over four years.
Science funding needs fixing — but not through chaotic reforms
Under these plans, the STFC’s core budget will remain flat. STFC says cuts will be required elsewhere to free up funding for the rising costs of grants for postdoctoral researchers and the costs of membership fees to international organizations such as the European particle-physics lab CERN.
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