Tuesday 10 November 2026 · Edition eleven
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Welcome to Research Agenda.
It’s all systems go for our first webinar tomorrow, and there will be another briefing later this week with all the resources and key takeaways – and even a preview of our next live event.
Plus: This week’s essay unpacks UKRI’s theory of economic growth, while elsewhere there’s been a further round of immigration changes for international staff to reckon with, and Haldane thinks about what the politics of data centres mean for research.
Michael Salmon, Editor
michael@researchagenda.news
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Our top story
How much do you earn settlement
It was a busy time in research last week, with Research England in particular unveiling various changes to its funding arrangements along with a consultation on the future of innovation funds for English higher education institutions.
And it promises to be another busy few days round these parts, as the Research Agenda team is furiously prepping for tomorrow’s UKRI, transformed webinar – look forward to seeing you there.
But while we have your attention for a few minutes, there’s another recent policy announcement we wanted to spotlight: the Home Office’s reforms to immigration and residency, as seen in its long-delayed “earned settlement” package.
This might not appear to be a research policy issue – but for those international research staff in the UK, or who will come here in the future, it matters a great deal.
The reforms will see one’s route to settlement depend, in no small part, on salary earned – those on skilled worker visas who are earning less than £50,000 or so could be facing a decade of reliance on the visa system, and all the professional and personal instability that entails.
This potentially represents quite a substantial slice of the research workforce – people in roles which are vital to ensuring that all the lofty ambitions for world-leading clusters and innovation-led nations actually achieve some semblance of reality.
It wasn’t all bad: a partial climbdown means that the situation for those accompanied by dependants has improved somewhat.
Overall, however, despite the government’s occasional publicity blitzes about “global talent”, it’s hard to shake the feeling that the environment for international research staff in the UK has continued to deteriorate.
And that’s something we should all be paying attention to.
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The essay
A decade of political upheaval has seen one economic responsibility after another parked at UKRI’s door. And Burnham’s devolution agenda might be an even more radical transformation.
James Coe
· Associate Editor, Research Agenda
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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, Stian Westlake (ESRC) in conversation, and a panel of Hetan Shah, Sarah Chaytor, Steph Smith and James Wilsdon. 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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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
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In brief
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The publication of the UK research security strategy has been pushed back to “early 2027”, according to a parliamentary written answer from science minister Chris McDonald.
The launch of the strategy had been intended for later this year. |
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UKRI has released a new version of its Gateway to Research database – changes include a new API and a commitment to updating data monthly rather than quarterly. |
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The Francis Crick Institute is celebrating the ten-year anniversary of its official opening, with commentary, facts and figures, and an impact report. |
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The latest instalment in King’s College London’s Growth Papers policy series, from former UKRI chair John Kingman and former business minister Shriti Vadera, makes the case for greater ambition for the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor.
Future reports will cover topics including AI, industrial strategy, skilled migration, and universities. |
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The Royal Society and other science academies in G7 countries have issued a joint statement on academy independence and academic freedom.
The statement stresses that legal status alone does not determine the independence of national academies, with governance arrangements and funding structures also having an impact. |
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The UK government’s Sovereign AI venture fund has announced an investment in AI for drug discovery startup Potential Sciences,
in an agreement which will also see the firm given access to compute through the AI Research Resource. |
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The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has published an independent evaluation of its investments in quantum over a decade,
which are found to have strengthened research capacity and the innovation ecosystem. |
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The Government Commercial Agency has launched a “playbook” for innovation procurement.
Through a series of steps and guiding questions, it is designed to enable and encourage public sector buyers to use procurement to unlock innovation. |
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The reading room
Worth your time from Wonkhe and across the wider community.
Rigour, pluralism, impact
Stian Westlake · Magic Smoke
What editorial mutinies reveal about the architecture of academic prestige
Kyle Siler · LSE Impact Blog
Do universities make local economies more innovative?
Stephen Roper · Substack
The ‘unpoliceability’ of AI journal policies
Dirk Lindebaum · SRHE blog
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Research in the media
Where research policy made the news.
The Guardian
‘Revenge of the nerds’: US midterms deliver a win for science – and a rebuke of Maha
This is Money
British tech darling Paragraf sued over claims it ‘duped’ investors in £30m takeover
The BMJ
Science Media Centre ‘legitimises’ industries that harm health, study claims
The Times
Vectura’s £58m inhaler R&D facility scrapped by new owners
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The diary
See full calendar and submit your own event →
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