Budget reactions: Osborne warned over growing shortfall

The shortfall in funding for UK research, relative to funding levels in 2010-11, will reach more than £2.3 billion by 2020 unless the government changes its spending habits, the Campaign for Science and Engineering has said.

Responding to the chancellor George Osborne’s budget of 18 March, CaSE said that the next government must choose to increase investment in science and engineering. Over the course of the 2010-15 parliament, CaSE said that a £1bn real-terms shortfall had accrued.

The science budget distributed by research councils and higher education funding councils has had only £130 million in extra investment over this parliament. Capital spending, however, has increased more or less in line with inflation so that by the end of 2015-16 the shortfall in spending will be a relatively small at £41m. However CaSE said that the ad hoc nature of capital investment was leading to difficulties of its own by creating uncertainty for long-term research collaborations.