Good post on why the closure of RP is bad. "But if UKRI (or someone else) does something we don’t like, we don’t really have any choice but to grumble. We can’t straightforwardly… and quickly… coordinate with other institutions and coordinate a response." - Something our sector should try to fix!

This is really rough news for everyone who works at RP. I'm so sorry to read this and hope impacted colleagues have good support networks to lean on. It will create a huge hole in a sector for which the timing couldn't be worse. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-o...

This sucks. There has been a lot of really good journalism from @resprofnews.bsky.social, and we need more dedicated reporting like this. Sending best wishes to the team.

www.nature.com/articles/s42... banger piece in Nature Reviews Physics from Hiranya V. Peiris. 'fewer things better' is a fake idea.

"Restructuring research funding as a choice between discovery and application gets the economics wrong, the evidence wrong and the people wrong." Timely piece by Hiranya Peiris in Nature Reviews Physics as we await UKRI/STFC's decisions on what to cut. rdcu.be/friwM

Big fan of @francesjones.bsky.social writing- I got a chuckle from the shallow grave the lede was buried in in this one... 'Tickell, who is also a non-executive director at DSIT, said disbanding [DSIT] would be “catastrophic”'

Indeed. It's also surprising that UKRI thinks it can make a dent in a research space where 20 million is several orders of magnitude smaller than the amounts FAANG are shoveling into R&D. Why not fund stuff commercial interests cannot do than try and compete?

The process of deciding how to cut costs at STFC by £162m is reaching its endgame The ball is now firmly in the government's court. As @francesjones.bsky.social reports in today's Research Fortnight, an impact assessment of the cuts has been sent to DSIT It appears not to make pretty reading 🧵

Turns out if you change your mind you can update previous minutes. 🤪

Another excellent article from @francesjones.bsky.social . These cuts represent an enormous act of self harm and solutions that maintain PPAN science must be found.

CERN’s socio-economic contributions as a global research hub 🌍 The new study “Assessment of the socio-economic benefits of CERN activities” highlights the scientific, technological, economic and societal benefits generated by CERN over the past 25 years. Find out more: home.cern/new-study-hi...

UKRI sounding eerily like Linton Barwick from @aiannucci.bsky.social’s In the Loop. “Those minutes should not be a reductive record of what happened to have been said, but they should be more a full record of what was intended to have been said. I think that’s the more accurate version don’t you?”

This is * insane *. STFC council minutes from December have been removed from their website, changed, and reposted. The new version rolls back on funding commitments made explicit in the initial version. I can't think of another adjective other than Trumpian behaviour.

Altering public minutes months after publication, without explanation or a record of the changes made, is deeply concerning. This raises serious questions about transparency and governance at @ukri.org. We’re requesting an explanation.

Hey @ukri.org the STFC council minutes page has disappeared: www.ukri.org/publications... Don't worry though, the national archives has a copy here: webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/202601... Could put it back up along with recent minutes, would hate to think you've something to hide 🤔

The wanton destruction of the UK's R&D base continues: www.theguardian.com/education/20...

quietly dropping my first substack: open.substack.com/pub/anotherw...

I've just emailed my MP again on the matter of proposed STFC 30% cuts - asking them to attend a drop-in parliamentary event From 4-6pm on 15/06/2026... @royalastrosoc.bsky.social @robertmassey.bsky.social

'Proposed staff cuts at some of the UK’s leading science departments should prompt ministers to reconsider whether the future of subjects key to industrial strategy ambitions are left to the markets, experts have said.' 1/2

IOP President Paul Howarth and I have today written to Science Minister Lord Vallance calling for a full impact assessment of proposed STFC cuts to particle physics, astronomy and nuclear (PPAN) research.

Ex @ukri.org STFC exec on why the Drayson partitions are being scrapped- it's because they were working as intended.

Terrific article by @si-wills.bsky.social describing the fragile progress we are seeing in particle, astro and nuclear early career researcher posts. Really hope UKRI sticks to Lord Vallances positive words on this.

Reactions, thoughts, question from @iop.org on the latest changes and statements from UKRI, STFC and the Science MInister regarding support for the physics research ecosystem. www.iop.org/about/news/i...

Removal of STFC grants protection raises long-term fears. Ending of mechanism shielding grants from rising costs “central to this funding crisis”, say researchers. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

We have an exciting new result from LHCb about to be published in PRL - my colleague Mark Smith and I took a deep look at it in The Conversation. theconversation.com/our-large-ha...

STFC chief commits to making no further cuts to postdoc funds Michele Dougherty also promises top-up funding for additional early career researcher positions after outcry www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

This is really quite a turnaround - especially as final decisions about how STFC makes £162m savings is still a way off (June at the earliest) Definitely counts as a win for all those raising concerns about the impact of STFC cuts on postdocs

New @ukri.org statement on the #STFC funding cuts "we commit to maintaining postdoctoral researchers across PPAN at least at the same level as last year" I think this a win for the fantastic ECR campaign, but last yr's numbers were already cut on the previous..🤔🧪🔭⚛️ ℹ️ www.ukri.org/publications...

“after a request from RPN, UKRI said the STFC budget would be £849m in 2026-27, £821m in 2027-28, £824m in 2028-29 and £842m in 2029-30” “Since 2023-24, inflation has seen STFC’s budget drop in real terms and is expected to continue to decline through to 2029-30.”

STFC budget falling in real terms even as UKRI spending rises. New figures show pressure on cash-strapped council, as scientists warn of wide-ranging impacts from cuts. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

If this is correct, then the claim that the issues in STFC are mostly to do with increased costs, inflation, exchange rates, and being overly ambitious would appear to not be true!

Finally some clarity on the #STFC budget: it's falling in real terms as UKRI spending rises. A conscious decision has been made to decrease UK funding for fundamental physics, despite all the evidence that our blue skies research is key for economic growth. Thank you @resprofnews.bsky.social!

While lots of attention has been on expected cuts to the particle physics, astronomy and nuclear programme, hundreds of researchers from other fields are also raising concerns about cuts to STFC-run facilities which they rely on

Full story by @isaacbarbosa1.bsky.social and me: www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

Cuts to UK Astronomy? It's all about the base(line). A short post on LinkedIn highlighting that the effective cuts to UK Astronomy funding are not some far off possibility - they have already started. www.linkedin.com/posts/profji...

"We need a credible plan for science funding in the UK" Excellent letters in @theguardian.com from Prof Ruben Saakyan and Prof Sheila Rowan on the cuts to @ukri.org - STFC PPAN science www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

"We need a credible plan for science funding in the UK" Excellent letters in @theguardian.com from Prof Ruben Saakyan and Prof Sheila Rowan on the cuts to @ukri.org - STFC PPAN science www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

Great to see this analysis out. It was a pleasure to work with Tim Evans and Joshua Horswill on this, supported by my @erc.europa.eu Starting Grant 'Beauty2Charm'. Joshua now works in GreenOps at GreenPixie.com

Observation of the doubly charmed baryon Ξcc⁺ with the LHCb Run 3 detector - The Ξ+cc mass is measured to be 3619.97±0.83±0.26+1.90−1.30MeV, where the third uncertainty is due to the unknown lifetime, which is assumed to lie in the range 15-160 fs. arxiv.org/abs/2603.28456

Excellent thread by @robinbisson.bsky.social of @resprofnews.bsky.social. We keep being told 'there are no cuts'. This is a concrete example of a 67% cut. Also true in Astro, Nuclear and Particle Experiment. Contrary to Lord Vallance and Sir Ian Chapman of @ukri.org's letter to the Committee.

All of the comms I've seen from UKRI this year have been at best incomplete and misleading. It's all depressingly Trumpian - hope you people are proud of yourselves.

In a letter to @chionwurah.bsky.social the Science Minister states: "~20 particle physics theory post-doctoral researchers [are] funded by UKRI each year." That’s not typical; that’s the post-cut baseline from 2026. The previous cycle supported ~60. Framing this as “normal” obscures a ~70% cut.

This is pure 1984: Lord Vallance promises that there will be no reduction in UK particle theory postdoc numbers from ~20 per year. The actual number awarded in the last round in 2022 was 58. committees.parliament.uk/publications...

The Committee has also published a followup set of questions. committees.parliament.uk/committee/13...

I simply do not understand the reply to the SIT committee from Lord Vallance - the claim made about the Drayson partitions is fundamentally inconsistent with previous statements over the last decade from STFC.

What is the impact of cuts to physics? Read more here ⬇️ www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

Drayson partitions considered by govt to be those retractable barriers they use for airport queues.