Tuesday 3 November 2026 · Edition ten
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Welcome to Research Agenda.
Last week’s Budget was a window into the government’s policy priorities – and set the scene for departmental funding battles for the rest of the Parliament.
Plus: This week’s essay thinks about how all these world-leading clusters we keep hearing about are going to be connected together in practice, while MEPs have put forward a plan for Horizon Europe and our latest explainer digs into the regional distribution of research funding.
Michael Salmon, Editor
michael@researchagenda.news
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Our top story
Crunch moments
Beyond the tax and spend headlines, the Budget also serves as a window into the emerging policy priorities of an administration, and last week’s edition was no exception.
While John Healey’s frugality was on display in almost every policy area, we still get an insight into the areas where the government feels it has a plan for the country and a retail offer for voters – and those where it does not.
Devolution, entrepreneurship, AI and life sciences all belong in the former category, whereas university funding, for example, seems to sit squarely in the latter.
Ministers were quick to brief the papers that last week’s fiscal event was merely an amuse-bouche ahead of this season’s true main event: Andy Burnham’s ten-year plan, due shortly before Christmas.
This in turn will sharpen Treasury thinking for next year’s spending review, which now appears to have slipped to autumn 2027.
This is the real crunch point for research, given how the Budget’s commitments on defence spending entail further cuts to every government department’s capital allocation.
Hard choices about the public finances appear ever more baked in – meaning that the moment for UK research to make its case for continued policymaker faith is right now.
Nerves will continue to jangle for quite some time about the upshot for public investment across the R&D system, especially once the rewiring the state white paper is added into the mix.
Even if budgets were not so strained, an expansive devolution agenda promises further upheaval.
Research Agenda will continue striving to work out how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together.
This week’s essay takes that aim rather literally, reflecting on the importance of physical connectivity in making a system of “world-leading clusters” add up to more than the sum of its parts.
And remember, if you would like a daily nudge on what’s happening in the world of research, as well as the larger download found in this briefing, do sign up for Readout – arriving in inboxes later this week.
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The essay
Why research and innovation policy needs closer alignment with transport and infrastructure policy.
Sarah Chaytor
· Director of Research Policy and Strategy, UCL
Geraint Rees
· Vice Provost for Research, Innovation and Global Engagement, UCL
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Webinar · Wednesday 11 November · 10.00–11.30
UKRI, transformed
Four new buckets, whole budget lines ripped up, an industrial strategy to wrestle with: our first live session is ninety minutes on a year of enormous change at UKRI, with the editorial team and special guests. Streamed on the site. Free for registered readers – if you’re reading this, you’re in.
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The newswire
The latest on the wire – every item reported in full on the site.
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■ New · in beta
Readout: everything new on the site, first thing
Keep track of daily news and policy announcements between briefings: Readout brings you everything new on Research Agenda – every story, new comment
and what’s coming up – first thing on the mornings in between, and only as long as the news.
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One click – you’ll keep the briefings too. |
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Haldane
Politics, as it happens to the research system – our anonymous column
Command and cluster
Or: what happens when you try to devolve innovation funding regionally under the noses of national governments?
Something for the hat? haldane@researchagenda.news
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In brief
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UKRI has released its first quarterly outcomes report,
the first in a series of updates tracking progress against its new strategy.
Objectives are classed as red, amber or green in outlook – currently most are rated amber, with no reds. |
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The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has published minutes of council meetings held in March and June 2026. |
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The Committee for Academic Freedom has said it is intervening in the case of an academic who does not want his former university to submit his research to the 2029 REF.
The intervention relies on data protection regulations, and seeks to determine whether the university’s proposed processing of an academic’s personal data is “legally necessary”. |
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Sense About Science announced the winners of the 2026 Maddox Prize, an award supported by the Royal Society for those who stand up for science and evidence. |
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Research in the media
Where research policy made the news.
The Times
Inside the UK institute developing an Alzheimer’s disease blood test
The Observer
Mathematicians warn AI firms are keeping vital research in the field secret
Financial Times
We are living in the age of cartoon science
Nature
I built the UK government’s metascience unit – here’s what countries need to know
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The diary
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