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UK chancellor Rachel Reeves (third from left) visited Siemens Healthineers in Oxford, UK, in January to deliver a speech outlining the government’s plans on science and economic growth.Credit: Peter Cziborra/WPA/Getty
Last month, the United Kingdom’s research community discovered that major changes to scientific research grants are under way. The country’s national science-funding agency, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), has paused existing grant programmes for research in the medical, biological and physical sciences while its leadership works out how its future funding decisions can, among other things, align more closely with the government’s goals. This is a serious and potentially career-ending blow for people coming to the end of a short-term contract and for those poised to obtain or renew their grant, writes John Tregoning, an immunologist at Imperial College London, in a World View article. “Bringing research to a shuddering halt is not the way to improve it,” he says.
Science funding needs fixing — but not through chaotic reforms
The UK development is but the latest in a pattern emerging in parts of the world: governments demanding more input into which types of research are funded. Political influence on public research funding has always existed, and some degree of alignment between funding and broader national priorities is necessary. That said, governments should understand what they risk by interfering in research funding to a greater extent than they have in previous years. In particular, they should be careful not to deprioritize the kind of curiosity-driven, investigator-led research that has a strong track record in advancing humanity’s knowledge, producing the types of innovation that prosperity and well-being depend on.
The UK government promises that UKRI’s envelope of funding will increase from around £9.2 billion (US$12.5 billion) in the 2026–27 financial year to £9.8 billion in 2029–30. At the same time, research funders have been given “clear direction from government” to better align their spending with “national and societal priorities”, writes Ian Chapman, the head of UKRI, in an open letter (see go.nature.com/4rnhghn). The move is prompting many questions from researchers. For example, boosting economic growth is a core priority for the UK government. Will researchers across all fields be expected to contribute to such growth, as is already being proposed for recipients of grants from the Economic and Social Research Council (part of UKRI)?
The United Kingdom is far from alone in calling on researchers to align what they do with the priorities of their governments. In the United States, the federal government has attempted to slash funding while also making it clear that funding decisions need to mirror its priorities. This has led to the defunding of research into climate change and women’s health as well as studies in diversity, equity and inclusion, and the country has scaled back its international cooperation. Moreover, the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, one of 27 institutes and centres at the National Institutes of Health, is expected to deprioritize studies on pandemic preparedness and biodefence.
The EU’s Horizon research fund needs to stay a defence-free zone
The European Union is not immune either. With many EU countries on a war footing, the European Commission is planning to break a long-standing convention and include defence research as a theme for the next iteration of Horizon Europe, the world’s largest science-funding scheme. Last October, Italy’s government announced that it plans to reshape the country’s science-funding system. Ministers need to resist the temptation to make the system more centralized, and EU governments should avoid increasing their involvement in funding decisions.
Such an approach takes a short-sighted view of how science contributes to economic prosperity in the long term. Curiosity-driven research can lead to innovation outside scientists’ intended designs. We described several such discoveries recently in a News Feature (Nature 646, 1040–1043; 2025). The polymerase chain reaction, a method for rapidly making thousands of copies of DNA fragments, came from work on bacteria found in hot springs. The tool is now essential for research in many fields, including genetics and medicine. Similarly, magnetic resonance imaging, a mainstay of modern medicine, is the result of studies of the fundamental physical properties of the atomic nucleus.
The path to such discoveries is not often predictable, nor does it conform to the length of a typical grant-funding cycle. It is interesting that China, where the state’s involvement in science has historically been stronger than in the United States and most of Europe, is taking another approach: it is boosting funding for fundamental research.
From MRI to Ozempic: breakthroughs that show why fundamental research must be protected
Science budget cuts are not uncommon, as the pages of Nature going back decades will testify. Over the past few years, however, some countries’ budgets have been protected from cuts, because of a growing consensus that spending on research boosts economic growth. Yet, at the same time, it is no coincidence that governments are taking a keener interest in what is being funded. They have every right to determine how public funds should be spent, especially in times of scarcity. No sector is entitled to spend the taxes from people’s hard-earned incomes. When circumstances change, and at times of national crises and emergencies, priorities should be reassessed.
For the most part, however, governments that have not interfered in the process through which researchers work out how specific pots of money will be spent have seen rich rewards in discovery, invention and innovation. It is never too late to show foresight and wisdom by leaving plenty of room for studies that do not directly align with political priorities.
