Welcome to this week’s Research Agenda. With the government preparing to set out its thinking on research security, we’re weighing up what it means for international scientific collaboration – especially at a time when UK science policy is settling into a new departmental home alongside business and industrial strategy.

Plus: We take a look at the European Innovation Act, the open access landscape is in the spotlight, Wales’ HE review has a chair, and the Lib Dems have new science policies. As ever, there’s a round-up of news in brief and research in the media, and Haldane is pondering the downsides of giving mayors power over innovation funding.

Michael Salmon, Editor

michael@researchagenda.news

Sovereign states

A renewed government interest in reindustrialisation under Andy Burnham is sometimes caricatured as a return to the 1970s. But in many ways, it’s a bang-up-to-date political philosophy which we can see being reached for by governments all over the world. Sovereignty in key areas, national technological capacity, a hedge against geopolitical turmoil: all a reflection of a world stage where collaboration has slipped down the priority list.

How science fits in isn’t always obvious – many would say that internationalisation and openness are and must continue to be defining features of any world-leading research system. One framing puts both basic research and its commercialisation at the service of national interests: the UK’s new Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade seems well-equipped to articulate this vision. But this surely runs square into the challenge of what happens when other nations take the same approach, and the global systems of cooperation which research needs to thrive are replaced with a kind of scientific protectionism.

Last week saw the government respond to House of Commons science committee recommendations on science diplomacy, in an answer which had plenty to say about the UK’s national priorities and control of strategic assets – and which was much less vocal on how science and technology partnerships will be pursued and strengthened. In some ways this is unsurprising. It’s hard for the UK government to articulate why it would pursue deeper collaboration with countries which are, in turn, reshaping their own research systems into explicitly national undertakings.

One thing that the government’s response to the science committee did reveal was that a finished research security strategy is imminent, and that institutions may be funded to safeguard the national interest. While guidance and financial support will no doubt be welcome, the quid pro quo is that the stakes around international research and its accompanying political sensitivities will inevitably be raised even higher. On Research Agenda this morning, Sapna Marwaha traces out a turbulent few years in international research, one where growing consensus has given way to renewed fragmentation.

The week on the wire – every item reported in full on the site.

UKRI has updated its list of future research and innovation funding opportunities – the provisional list now goes up to April 2027.

The Office for Life Sciences set out bioscience and health technology sector statistics for 2024–25. The number of companies in the sector fell by three per cent compared to 2023–24, and there was a two per cent drop in total employment.

The Scottish government has published a Scotland-specific overview of the 2026 UK innovation survey results.

AI company Anthropic has announced a new programme which will give life sciences researchers access to its most advanced models with a “more permissive” set of safeguards.

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) has released a refreshed EDI action plan for 2026–28.

Research England’s transparency programme pilot findings, SIRF impact evaluation, and condition of the research estate report are planned for publication by December 2026, according to a written parliamentary answer from the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade.

Worth your time from Wonkhe and across the wider community.

How the UK should protect its science and tech research from foreign state threats  Tahlia Peterson · Chatham House

Research beyond institutions  Suzie Leighton & Alys Kay · NCACE

The logic behind the international partnership map  Panos Sousounis · Wonkhe

Where research policy made the news this week.

The Times   Brian Cox: Physics in Britain is facing a crisis

BBC News   The science park workers who don’t need a lab coat

City AM   Government plots university spinout crackdown

Financial Times   AI is a powerful but problematic new collaborator in mathematics

WalesOnline   Manchester can teach Cardiff something about innovation

Politico   Trump asked budget chief to draft order bringing health research funding under his control

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