UKRI cut sparks fears over R&D targets

Experts warn £539 million budget reduction must be “bump in road rather than direction change”

Policy experts have questioned the government’s R&D ambitions after it revealed a major year-on-year cut to the budget of the national research funder, UK Research and Innovation.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy published long-awaited details of spending for the current financial year on 27 May, which allocated £7.9 billion of its £11.3bn R&D budget to UKRI. This is a drop of £539m, or 6.3 per cent, compared with the previous year.