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The UK is disproportionately strong in basic research

2026-07-31 · 10:56 UTC ·@stianwestlake ·4 min read

Brief

Stian Westlake defends UKRI’s strategy in response to Prof Brian Cox’s criticism, arguing the organisation is rightly balancing support for curiosity-driven science with targeted translational R&D to secure wider social and economic benefits. He highlights the UK’s disproportionate basic-research success (0.8% of world population, 8.4% of citations) and cites flagship contributions — Human Genome Project, RECOVERY trial, gravitational waves, AlphaFold, graphene — but says the country lags at turning discovery into jobs and applied products. Westlake points to the Quantum Research Hubs, built on 20+ years of research-council investment and linked to startups, firms, procurement and industrial strategy, as a model. He contends that at the 2025 Spending Review the mix of curiosity and application-focused proposals was necessary to secure a relatively generous settlement, and warns policy-makers not to take future funding for granted.

Why it matters

The UK is disproportionately strong in basic research: it is 0.8% of the world population but accounts for 8.4% of academic citations; recent high-profile UK contributions include the Human Genome Project, the RECOVERY trial, gravitational waves, AlphaFold, and graphene.

Key details

  • UKRI’s articulated strategy deliberately combines curiosity-driven research with translational R&D to boost real-world impact and more R&D-intensive UK businesses; Westlake cites the Quantum Research Hubs as an example built on 20+ years of research council investment that also links to startups, established firms, public procurement, investors and the Government’s industrial strategy.
  • Westlake says the 2025 Spending Review negotiations involved both ‘how’ and ‘how much’: he claims that had UKRI and DSIT proposed focusing only on curiosity-driven research the funding settlement would have been significantly less generous, so the mixed strategy helped protect curiosity-driven funding.
  • Westlake rejects Prof Brian Cox’s charge of short-sightedness, arguing the strategy is right for the national interest and pragmatically protects basic science because voters care about practical benefits; he echoes Prof Richard Jones’s warning that generous research budgets should not be taken for granted.
Source evidence

I’m reluctant to get into an argument with @profbriancox, who is a great advocate for science. But I would like to stand up for UKRI’s strategy here, which I think is trying to do something really important – both for curiosity-driven research and for the wider benefits that research and innovation can bring to everyone in the UK.

(Fair warning: if you’re expecting a snappy 280-character tweet, this is not one.)

Everyone knows that Britain has a proud track record of amazing basic research; we’re 0.8% the world’s population and 8.4% of the academic citations. If scientometric stats don’t do it for you, consider some of the greatest hits. The Human Genome Project, the RECOVERY trial, gravitational waves, AlphaFold, graphene – all significant breakthroughs of recent decades with a big UK contribution.

But the UK’s track record of successful innovation – of translating research into real-world impact, or of doing applied R&D for practical benefit – is more mixed. I’d like to see more R&D-intensive businesses in the UK creating good jobs, drawing on the UK’s scientific expertise. And a stronger connection between research and its application, to make the most of the potential of great research to improve people’s lives.

The point of UKRI’s strategy is to invest in curiosity-driven research, while also doing a better job of backing translational R&D to improve people’s lives and drive economic growth. Prof Cox argues this is ‘short sighted’ and ‘short term’. I strongly disagree. Take our investment in Quantum Research Hubs and the wider quantum research strategy. These build on 20+ years of research council investment in quantum research, and combine pure scientific research with application, and also links to quantum start-ups, established businesses, public procurement, investors, and the Government’s wider industrial strategy.

So I think UKRI’s strategy is the right thing to do in the national interest. I also think it’s the right thing to do pragmatically, even if all you care about is curiosity-driven research.

To explain why, we need to talk about the process how the government allocates investment, including for scientific research. I hope I’m not giving away anything I shouldn’t. At fiscal events like the 2025 Spending Review that determine UKRI’s current budget, organisations like UKRI aren’t given a pot of money and told to spend it how they like. The spending negotiation is about “how” as well as “how much”.

My reading of last summer’s negotiations is that the financial settlement for R&D – which as Prof Cox says was ‘quite generous’, especially at a time of straightened public finances – would have been significantly less generous if UKRI and DSIT had proposed to focus spending purely on curiosity-driven research, and that had we done that, curiosity-driven research would now be in a worse position, not a better one. I don’t say that because the last Government (or the previous Government for that matter) are against curiosity-driven research; on the contrary, they’ve been great advocates for it. But there are many other demands on the public finances, and all the research I’ve seen (and indeed, that I’ve done) on voters’ feelings about science is that application – and the practical benefits science brings – really matter to a lot of people. What happens in future fiscal events is obviously the new Government’s choice, but I’d personally be surprised if they see this issue radically differently, and as Prof Richard Jones has observed, no-one should take generous research budgets for granted.

So my case is that the UKRI strategy, and its focus on advancing knowledge, improving lives and driving growth, is the right thing to do from a national perspective, and would also be the right thing to do even if all you are interested in is curiosity-driven research. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading.

Brian Cox (@ProfBrianCox)

Jodrell Bank is the most visible causality of UKRI’s short sighted ‘vision’ for science, but as you’ll see below, there are many other valuable UK facilities and collaborations at risk. We became aware of the problem in the autumn of last year. It is not a result of the overall funding settlement for science after the spending review, which was quite generous I would say in the circumstances. Neither as far as we can tell is it a direct decision by ministers (all of whom have now gone in any case). Rather the problems appears to have been caused by senior management at UKRI focusing on short term economic ‘impact’ (whatever that means) rather than doing their job as custodians of the foundations of science. What must happen now is that the new ministerial team make the time (and space ;-)) to review the upcoming catastrophe, and instruct UKRI to do their job and focus on making Britain the best place in the world to do science, now and in the future.

— https://nitter.net/ProfBrianCox/status/2082427049109602580#m