On tension and tensioning
An article in the Telegraph from the Conservatives’ shadow science secretary Julia Lopez boasts the headline “Labour could easily save iconic Jodrell Bank by cutting a few dopey woke projects.”
“Bad stuff is happening that Mr Burnham could now stop if he so chooses,” she says. Case in point: Labour has given the STFC a more or less flat cash spending review settlement, leading to major cuts to domestic science projects of the sort that no-one reading this column needs reminding about. For Lopez, these kinds of funding challenge “reveal a lot about a government’s priorities.”
This is where the woke projects come in: UKRI-funded studies into things like climate coloniality and decolonising justice, investment which the Conservatives think could be better spent elsewhere. She also gives a nod to the party’s plans to tilt more of UKRI’s budget into defence research.
The Member for Hornchurch and Upminster is not the only one reacting to the STFC announcements along these lines. Various commentators have been pondering whether the new Prime Minister might be more disposed to overruling certain decisions than Keir Starmer would have been, especially in the case of Jodrell Bank given its proximity to Manchester. Elsewhere we see the case being made – as in recent coverage in The Times – that funding for the telescope is really a national security issue, of the kind that ministers might like to position themselves behind.
On the other side of the debate, you don’t have to look far to find suggestions that UKRI’s growing investments in AI is being traded off against purer science, and that if the funder’s budget is too tight to protect iconic science infrastructure then an easy fix would be to earmark a little less for supercomputers and data centres.
At the Commons science committee the other day, Labour backbencher Emily Darlington was keen for Liz Kendall to pledge to overrule UKRI if the then science secretary felt that STFC’s leadership, expert panel and consultation had come to the wrong decision. Kendall got quite annoyed about this, though it wasn’t clear whether she took umbrage at the idea of government interference in the research system, or just wanted to be left out of the whole mess.
In a nutshell: when it comes to the STFC decisions, there has been more angling than usual for politicians to take a view and pull a lever. It’s understandable, against a backdrop of damaging cuts to UK science which, to add insult to injury, have been poorly communicated (as UKRI itself has admitted).
And there’s been a lot of tension about tensioning. There has “always been this tension between the research projects and the facilities,” Patrick Vallance noted earlier this year – but all funding is “tensioned” against something, he added. “It either gets tensioned against the rest of physics, which might be one way to do it, or you tension it against EPSRC or something.”
“Tensioning different portfolio elements is a very necessary part of managing research and innovation investment,” AI minister Kanishka Narayan said around the same time. Scientists giving evidence to parliamentary committees felt that said tension “seems unfair” and is akin to “building a science park but no-one using it.”
At a time when everything feels stretched taught, it’s unsurprising that different elements of the research system appear in competition with each other: PPAN vs facilities, STFC vs other research councils, discipline vs discipline. There’s an argument that someone outside the system can play the role of clear-sighted arbiter when UK research cannot find equilibrium through its own processes.
But surely any possible benefit is outweighed by the much greater risks. It could be that Andy Burnham (or more realistically, an industrial strategy-minded Jonny Reynolds, or a new science minister feeling his way into the brief) might be open to persuasion, whether on Jodrell Bank or the next issue.
Someone powerful could have a quiet word in the ears of UKRI’s senior leadership – couldn’t they? It’s just that each time politicians are asked to get involved, or otherwise intuit an opportunity to do so, the research community has left the door open for more the next time.
Spotted a politician meddling in the research system? Or a blurry line between academia and government? Email the man himself: haldane [at] researchagenda [dot] news