Cuts to US science proposed by President Trump are astonishing in their scale $5.9 bn cut to National Institute of Health, $4.8 bn cut to National Science Foundation A warning to UK scientists of what happens when a cross-party consensus on science funding breaks down www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Sul y Blodau. In the last two years, my mother asked me to put flowers on my father's memorial on Palm Sunday. This year it's for both of them.

More details on the government's £2.5 billion plan to build a pilot scale nuclear fusion power plant, with a goal of having fusion power on the grid by 2040. I'm surprised that this v ambitious plan doesn't get more coverage www.gov.uk/government/p...

For more than a decade, there’s been a cross-party consensus behind increasing the UK govt’s R&D spending to drive economic growth - & there’s been a substantial real terms increase in the science budget.

Three recent pessimistic pieces from me about the potential fragility of the consensus supporting UK government spending on research and development, given UK’s continuing economic difficulties, global insecurity, & return of energy geopolitics, as effects of climate change start to bite...

For more than a decade, there’s been a cross-party consensus behind increasing the UK govt’s R&D spending to drive economic growth - & there’s been a substantial real terms increase in the science budget. But the economic growth hasn’t arrived, yet. What happens if it doesn’t?

Good to see that the govt is taking forward the recommendations of the Fingleton Review on Nuclear Regulation. But regulatory reform by itself is not enough to get new nuclear power delivered affordably & on time - we need to rebuild national technological capability...

"Lessons from the gas price spike". Written in 2022, but (unfortunately) worth revisiting. softmachines.org?p=2675

The problem of predicting protein structure from sequence has been definitively solved by the AI programme AlphaFold, winning a well-deserved Nobel prize for its developers. But structure prediction is just one of at least four different problems of protein folding...

Biggest contribution of AI to science so far: AlphaFold, which has solved problem of predicting protein 3d structure from 1d sequence. But there are other problems of protein folding: understanding mechanisms & pathways, misfolding, & role of disordered proteins: my blogpost softmachines.org?p=3258

The problem of predicting protein structure from sequence has been definitively solved by the AI programme AlphaFold, winning a well-deserved Nobel prize for its developers. But structure prediction is just one of at least four different problems of protein folding...

This is very very good on the underperformance of the UK graduate premium. It's a demand side problem.* *as people at SPRU have been saying for 40 years.

Great piece from @tomforth.co.uk on the shrinking graduate premium in the UK. The UK's skills problem is not a problem of supply, it's one of demand; our regional economies are not complex & successful enough to absorb the number of graduates we produce. tomforth.co.uk/graduateprem...

One unhelpful aspect of current discourse around universities is tendency to set HE & vocational courses in opposition. Reality is more than half of students in UK universities are doing these directly vocational subjects: -Business studies -subjects allied to medicine -computing -engineering -law

One unhelpful aspect of current discourse around universities is tendency to set HE & vocational courses in opposition. Reality is more than half of students in UK universities are doing these directly vocational subjects: -Business studies -subjects allied to medicine -computing -engineering -law

The biggest upheaval in UK science policy since the 1980s is currently underway, with the creation of a much more direct & explicit link between UK government priorities & £9bn/ yr of R&D funded by the agency UKRI My attempt to explain & set in historical context softmachines.org?p=3252

The biggest upheaval in UK science policy since the 1980s is currently underway, with the creation of a much more direct & explicit link between UK government priorities & £9bn/ yr of R&D funded by the agency UKRI My attempt to explain & set in historical context softmachines.org?p=3252

Excellent background to current UK R&D funding turbulence.

A superb summary. Particularly valuable for comparing the scale of budgets allocated to curiosity-driven research compared to everything else, and therefore judging whether the balance is optimal. I suspect not.

This is very good. I would add the current breakdown in the triple-stream funding model as we shift to buckets is likely to do significant damage to research capability in the short term, even if the overall change is a good one.

The way UK govt funds science is in the midst of a major transition, with creation of a much more direct link between government priorities & UKRI research funding. My attempt to set in context the biggest upheaval in UK science funding policy since the 1980s: softmachines.org?p=3252

Rock-climber Alex Honnold is in the news again, for climbing solo a Taipei skyscraper - an excuse to recycle this old post of mine about the importance of technological innovation in climbing, (contrary to the claims of a well-known economist).

Rock-climber Alex Honnold is in the news again, for climbing solo a Taipei skyscraper - an excuse to recycle this old post of mine about the importance of technological innovation in climbing, (contrary to the claims of a well-known economist).

For followers of the Housing Theory of Everything: Why I don't think all our problems can be ascribed to the 1947 Town & Country Planning Act

As pressure builds on the UK to re-build, re-energise, re-arm and re-industrialise, for an increasingly hostile world, a decades old consensus on science funding is likely to come to an end. Wrote this a few months ago, recent events don't persuade me I was being alarmist. softmachines.org?p=3192

It wasn't high energy prices that caused the historic decline in UK manufacturing: fastest drop happened while energy prices were low and falling, & North Sea oil & gas production at its peak. But energy costs a big problem now & hard choices are needed to hold onto strategic sectors

The decline of UK industry wasn’t caused by high energy prices - largest relative decline in manufacturing occurred between 1995 & 2005, when energy prices were low and falling, & the UK was an energy exporter. But high energy prices are a problem for manufacturing now

This is a great read and contains an early candidate for "Understatement of the Year"

The strongest argument I've yet seen for investing in fusion, from @richardaljones.bsky.social. Not as an energy hail mary, but as a genuine technoscientific challenge softmachines.org?p=3229

STEP is exciting and pro-growth - it needs stuff the UK is very good at (cutting-edge R&D; precision engineering; energy technologies) and stuff policymakers are saying they want to be better at (smart regulation; AI-partnered sci/tech; commercialising technology).

I’m surprised that there isn’t more awareness/support for STEP, the UK project to put fusion power on the grid by 2040, amongst our growth-oriented think tanks & anglofuturists, given its energy abundance goal & potential for building frontier technological capacity

I’m surprised that there isn’t more awareness/support for STEP, the UK project to put fusion power on the grid by 2040, amongst our growth-oriented think tanks & anglofuturists, given its energy abundance goal & potential for building frontier technological capacity

Grim scenes from the North this morning (or is it the East Mids?) Looking across to Mam Tor & Kinder Scout from Sir William Hill, Derbyshire

At a time when many bemoan the UK state's inability to deliver big projects & build state capacity, too few have noticed the launch of a hugely ambitious £0.5bn/year technological project: STEP aims to build a pilot nuclear fusion plant delivering power to the grid by 2040.

At a time when many bemoan the UK state's inability to deliver big projects & build state capacity, too few have noticed the launch of a hugely ambitious £0.5bn/year technological project: STEP aims to build a pilot nuclear fusion plant delivering power to the grid by 2040.

On the barmy belief package that motivates Silicon Valley elites & steers their investments: My review of @adambecker.bsky.social 's book “More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity” softmachines.org?p=3226

On the barmy belief package that motivates Silicon Valley elites & steers their investments: My review of @adambecker.bsky.social 's book “More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity” softmachines.org?p=3226

The Enduring Appeal of Superintelligence, Superabundance, & Eternal Life. Me on @adambecker.bsky.social's excellent book on the Silicon Valley worldview, "More Everything Forever: AI overlords, space empires, and Silicon Valley's crusade to control the fate of humanity" softmachines.org?p=3226

The Enduring Appeal of Superintelligence, Superabundance, & Eternal Life. Me on @adambecker.bsky.social's excellent book on the Silicon Valley worldview, "More Everything Forever: AI overlords, space empires, and Silicon Valley's crusade to control the fate of humanity" softmachines.org?p=3226

Excellent choice - I very much recommend Dan Breznitz's "Innovation in Real Places", very fresh look at placed-base innovation/industrial policy. Can very useful be read alongside @neillee.bsky.social's "Innovation for the Masses". Dan Wang's Breakneck is brilliant too.

End of year overview of posts on my blog Soft Machines. Featuring -the UK's economic stagnation -why the UK's new nuclear build programme failed -good & bad reasons for growing UK manufacturing -scenarios for the future of AI -Moore's law -university/R&D policy for hard times softmachines.org?p=3218

End of year overview of posts on my blog Soft Machines. Featuring -the UK's economic stagnation -why the UK's new nuclear build programme failed -good & bad reasons for growing UK manufacturing -scenarios for the future of AI -Moore's law -university/R&D policy for hard times softmachines.org?p=3218

Pleased to report that there’s been effective communication between @philipcball.bsky.social’s gnomes and Santa’s elves

How should universities work with combined authorities and business to support inclusive growth in our city-regions? Some reflections on my five years in Greater Manchester, to mark the year of my retirement from the University of Manchester. softmachines.org?p=3213

This by the excellent @jburnmurdoch.ft.com confirms my view that political trends are being driven by the halting of the upward economic conveyor belt - striking charts: www.ft.com/content/30a4... Welcome to the age of zero-sum politics

How should universities work with combined authorities and business to support inclusive growth in our city-regions? Some reflections on my five years in Greater Manchester, to mark the year of my retirement from the University of Manchester. softmachines.org?p=3213

An excellent response from @tomforth.co.uk to the TBI proposal for new R&D institutions outside universities. I agree that it would be better if the UK had more diversity in R&D institutions; Tom brilliantly identifies some blind-spots in the TBI analysis. To pick out a few key points...

An excellent response from @tomforth.co.uk to the TBI proposal for new R&D institutions outside universities. I agree that it would be better if the UK had more diversity in R&D institutions; Tom brilliantly identifies some blind-spots in the TBI analysis. To pick out a few key points...

A blogpost in which I return to a continuing theme: The UK’s continuing economic growth crisis. GDP per person grew by 2.3% a year between 1955 and 2008, when growth slowed down dramatically, never to recover. GDP per person is £16,500 (29%) lower than if pre GFC trend continued

A blogpost in which I return to a continuing theme: The UK’s continuing economic growth crisis. GDP per person grew by 2.3% a year between 1955 and 2008, when growth slowed down dramatically, never to recover. GDP per person is £16,500 (29%) lower than if pre GFC trend continued