@thetimes.com letters to the editor 10/02/26: @ukri.org "...has announced a 30 per cent funding cut to particle physics, astrophysics and nuclear physics...This is not merely a blow to “blue-skies” research; it is a direct assault on economic growth." www.thetimes.com/comment/lett...

For... reasons... I've been doing a bit of archaeology, @johnwomersley.bsky.social @iansample.bsky.social

This ⬇️, the other Infrastructure project deprioritisations, the 30% cuts planned at STFC, are not "doing fewer things better". These long term endeavours are already streamlined like a whippet. This UKRI funding rebalancing will result in the UK losing world leading science. #UKRI #STFC #physics

I, along with many other UKRI, STFC and RS fellows are signing this open letter on the STFC cuts. The proposed reductions will devastate UK astronomy and the researchers who make it possible. Please read, share, and, if a fellow, sign. advancedfellows-openletter-stfc.github.io/index.html #astro

Article from @physicsworld.bsky.social about the decision to withdraw UK funding from the @lhcb.bsky.social upgrade, without which LHCb will not be able to exploit the high luminosity LHC (which the UK has already paid for via the CERN subscription). physicsworld.com/a/cern-upgra...

But what also seems to be missing is an acknowledgement that STFC is providing facilities for researchers across almost all areas of research. Hence, why is the pain not being shared more equally, or why is there not some protection for the grants line in STFC?

Myth busting: QR long predates the idea of 80% FEC. It was designed to sustain uni's as a national research capability, not to mop up funding shortfalls. I’d like to think that's why QR is in UKRI's bucket 1, but I suspect it’s mainly to make the bucket bigger en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Univers...

Good article by @iansample.bsky.social but repeats the incorrect statement that subscriptions to international projects such as Cern and the European Space Agency rise with foreign exchange rates. CERN subscription has stayed flat by construction. www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

Appalling news. @ukri.org has some serious questions to answer. How was prioritisation made and how is UK's world leading international science programmes being tensioned against national facilities?

Conclusion: even if this is a fuck-up, it's a fuck-up whose outcomes are useful to some. It won't be reversed until the political pain of doing nothing about it becomes too great to continue. Dial up the political pressure. Don't let it get buried in the news cycle.

Some thoughts on the select committee appearance by the boss of UKRI, Ian Chapman yesterday. It’s a long watch but can be seen here: parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/... Thread 🧵

Interesting that @ukri.org CEO thinks it would be too much effort to compare past funding allocation to future allocation. @chionwurah.bsky.social correctly notes accountability issue with this. Looking forward to seeing the comparison.

Some initial reactions to the 'published on a Sunday afternoon' letter from the CEO of UKRI. 🧵 www.ukri.org/news/open-le...

"Physics isn't a luxury we can afford to throw away through confusion and cuts." Following our response to STFC's funding reductions yesterday, it's great to see this news covered in @thetimes.com. (1/4) www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Early Christmas present from LHCb: the update of our B->K*mumu analysis using the full dataset recorded by the first iteration of our machine! Excitingly, we see significant deviations from Standard Model predictions - roughly '4 sigma' if you look at everything together. arxiv.org/abs/2512.18053

Congratulations to Dr. Horswill of @uomparticle.bsky.social on defending his thesis, and receiving the @lhcb.bsky.social early career scientist award!

Observing the good weather @jodrellbank.bsky.social

Now published (Open Access) in Comput Softw Big Sci. Congratulations Joshua! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

A new piece in the matter— #antimatter puzzle The @lhcb.bsky.social experiment at CERN has revealed a fundamental asymmetry in the behaviour of particles called baryons. Find out more: home.cern/news/press-r...

Fantastic @CommonsSITC visit to @CERN to see how brilliant scientist, engineers and technicians from across world (Inc lots from the UK) are working to unlock the wonders of the universe!

@lhcb.bsky.social looking nice from the airport. I'm out again to do some @ukri.org supported policy work

New preprint day: arxiv.org/abs/2502.09557. Congratulations to Joshua, who has automated the way in which @lhcb.bsky.social determines the real-time trigger thresholds for its physics programme. This work supported by the @erc.europa.eu starting grant 'Beauty2Charm', and @ukri.org STFC.

I've worked out how to get two Christmas puddings cooked in under a microsecond with this one weird trick. Merry Christmas!

Measurement of CP asymmetry in Bₛ⁰→Dₛ⁺K⁻ decays arxiv.org/abs/2412.14074 - This result is combined with the previous LHCb measurement in this channel using 3fb⁻¹ resulting in a determination of γ=(81+12−11)∘.

First post on the good twitter. Happy to have played a small part in this thanks to @ukri.org