On the 9th of July 2026, UKRI and STFC made public the first conclusions of a prioritisation exercise that took place over several months. The uncertainty contributed to a collapse in confidence among early-career researchers; in our survey, a large majority of applicable UK-based postdocs and recent postdocs reported having considered looking abroad. The goal of this article is to disentangle the narrative put forward by UKRI to present things in a positive manner from the hard reality already felt by PPAN scientists, and in particular early-career researchers.
The official narrative
The STFC prioritisation outcome is easiest to misunderstand if one starts with some of the headline cash figures advertised by UKRI. The most iconic one is the 2.7% fall in the PPAN science budget, which Sir Ian Chapman (CEO of UKRI) used in front of the Science and Technology Committee described the reduction as “not a deep cut” and characterised the strength of the community's response as emotional.
Regarding early-career researchers, UKRI has committed to protect post-doctoral researchers within PPAN grants at the 2025/26 level, which, at first sight, may look like a real win for the community.
In other parts of the STFC portfolio, the reductions are explicit and severe. UKRI states that the National Laboratories component will fall by 58%, support for STFC's Particle Physics Department and UK Astronomy Technology Centre by 20% each, and the multidisciplinary facilities budget by 15% over four years. The announced measures include reduced running time and user support, reduced compute and accelerator programmes, mothballing of CLARA, cuts to instrument and technology development, and possible closure of some laser and muon capabilities if alternative funding or operating models cannot be found.
What the cuts mean in practice
This could all be seen as a real win for PPAN science, where, as the Secretary of State Liz Kendall was promising recently, "the number of postdocs will be the same".
However, all of this depends heavily on the baseline chosen. The 2.7% figure compares the 2029/30 cash forecast with 2025/26, while the commitment on postdoctoral researchers protects only the level attributed to that same financial year. Neither comparison captures the capacity already lost before the prioritisation period begins.
Regarding the number of early-career researchers funded by STFC, UKRI and DSIT have repeatedly committed to protect post-doctoral researchers within PPAN grants at the 2025/26 level. The only new addition to this statement released by UKRI last thursday is that this protection would account for a 1.88% annual growth. Of course, this outcome is an important protection against a further fall from the 2025/26 baseline in the next few years. But one may wonder whether this really mean that the number of postdocs will indeed "stay the same". One more time, the important thing to look when making this comparison with previous years is the baseline that is chosen, and the choice of the financial year 2025/2026 is highly questionable.
First of all, in 2025/26, a first cut of 15% was applied across almost all PPAN areas when STFC started anticipating that cuts would become necessary due to increasing cost pressure. This initial cut was thus not unrelated to the current situation: it was the first symptoms of the current crisis and were felt very strongly by the community. The number of postdocs funded on astronomy grants, for example, was already cut by about 30% that year. However, for particle theory postdocs, which were funded on a three-year basis, this cut was not applied in 2025/2026. But what UKRI decided to do, is assume that this cut did happen, estimate how many postdocs would have been funded in 2025/26 if this cut was applied, and "protect" postdoc numbers in particle theory using this imaginary baseline. So yes, particle theory had 58 postdocs per year in the last three years, and this number will drop to 25, which corresponds to an effective 57% cut to the number of postdocs from 2025/26 to 2026/27. But that's not all. This "protection" of the FY2025/26 levels did require UKRI to not cut postdocs more deeply, mechanically demanding that STFC cuts into projects further. But it turns out that some postdocs are actually funded on projects too, so the cut in total number of postdocs is going to be larger than announced.
Overall, the common thread across this prioritisation package is a reduction in effective scientific capacity: fewer resources for projects, reduced technical support, reduced accelerator and technology activity, less compute, less instrument development, reduced facility access, and pressure on the specialist teams that make these capabilities possible.
Why the official “2.7%” PPAN figure depends on the baseline
UKRI presents the prioritisation outcome primarily through cash comparisons between the 2025/26 actual-cost baseline and the 2029/30 forecast. Those figures describe the scale of the adjustment over the formal four-year prioritisation period. They do not, however, show how the purchasing power of each portfolio has evolved over a longer period. To track this evolution, one needs to account properly for how inflation affected this purchasing power over time. Historical inflation from 2021/22 to April 2026 is taken from the Bank of England inflation calculator, giving a 27.2% cumulative increase. For the period from 2026/27 to 2029/30, the calculation uses annual growth of 1.88%—the inflationary assumption that UKRI says was set by HM Treasury during Spending Review 2025.
| Comparison | Numbers used | Result | What it tells us |
|---|---|---|---|
| UKRI headline: 2025/26 to 2029/30, cash | UKRI's figures: £199m, compared with £193m | −2.7% | The official cash comparison against the 2025/26 baseline. |
| 2024/25 to 2029/30, cash | £206m, compared with £193m | −6.3% | Changing the cash baseline by only one year changes the headline substantially, even before inflation. |
| 2025/26 to 2029/30, real terms | £199m + 1.88%/year for 4 years, compared with £193m | −10% | Estimated loss of purchasing power, using UKRI's chosen 2025/26 baseline. |
| 2021/22 to 2029/30, real terms | £167m + 27.2% + 1.88%/year for 4 years, compared with £193m | −15.7% | Longer-run analytical comparison using the historical and forward inflation assumptions described above. |
Looking into the details of how much each portfolio evolved within the STFC budget, the table below places the two perspectives side by side. The blue-tinted columns reproduce UKRI's comparison with 2025/26. The red-tinted columns compare the 2029/30 forecast with the amount that the 2021/22 budget would need to reach in 2029/30 to preserve its purchasing power. That benchmark applies the 27.2% cumulative historical inflation adjustment to April 2026 and then 1.88% annual growth from 2026/27 to 2029/30.
| Portfolio line | Official cash change vs 2025/26 |
Inflation-adjusted change vs 2021/22 |
What the contrast reveals |
|---|---|---|---|
| PPAN | −2.7% | −15.7% | The official headline suggests a modest reduction, but the longer-run comparison shows a substantial loss of purchasing power. The 2025/26 baseline also comes after earlier pressure on grants and postdoctoral capacity. |
| Multidisciplinary facilities | −15% | −29.3% | The official 15% reduction becomes a loss of almost 30% relative to the purchasing power of the 2021/22 budget. This is consistent with reduced running time, user support and technical assistance. |
| National laboratories and estates | −8% | +19.5% | The aggregate remains above its inflation-adjusted 2021/22 level, but this does not mean National Laboratories are protected. The combined line conceals a 58% reduction in National Laboratories costs alongside a 27% increase in Estates. |
| International facilities and infrastructure | +19% | −15.7% | A 19% cash increase does not represent a comparable expansion in capability. Against the inflation-adjusted 2021/22 level, the line is about 16% lower; much of the cash increase is required simply to sustain subscriptions whose costs are rising. |
| Total costs | −15% | −21.0% | The whole STFC cost envelope falls by 15% from the recent 2025/26 baseline and by about 21% relative to the inflation-adjusted purchasing power of 2021/22. |
Note that the table does not capture every individual prioritisation decision, as those will come in due time over the next few months.
Obviously, the most important discrepancy that is noticeable in this table is in PPAN: UKRI's headline describes a 2.7% cash reduction from 2025/26, whereas, compared with the inflation-adjusted purchasing power of the 2021/22 budget, the 2029/30 forecast represents a 15.7% real-terms reduction. So yes, the official figure is technically correct, but our comparison shows that the chosen baseline omits much of the longer-term erosion in capacity.
The same pattern is even stronger for the multidisciplinary facilities. The official package reduces their budget by 15% relative to 2025/26, but the longer-term comparison shows a 29.3% real-terms reduction relative to 2021/22. The practical consequences listed by UKRI—less running time, less user support and technical assistance, and the possible loss of some laser and muon capabilities—are therefore not surprising. They are the operational expression of a much larger loss of purchasing power than the four-year cash headline alone suggests.
International facilities illustrate the same issue from the opposite direction. Their budget rises by 19% in cash terms from 2025/26, yet remains about 15.7% below the inflation-adjusted 2021/22 level. A nominal increase can therefore absorb rising subscription and exchange-rate costs without delivering any comparable expansion in UK scientific capability. UKRI itself notes that the unusually low 2025/26 figure is affected by the scheduling of subscription payments, which is another reason not to interpret the headline percentage as a simple measure of growth.
The National Laboratories and Estates line requires a different caution. Its combined budget is 19.5% above the inflation-adjusted 2021/22 level, even though it falls by 8% from 2025/26. That apparently positive long-term figure does not describe what is happening to the laboratories: the aggregate combines a 58% reduction in National Laboratories costs with a 27% increase in Estates costs. More spending on critical estate and legacy requirements can raise the combined line while the scientific and technical activity supported inside the laboratories is sharply reduced.
Seen in this way, the prioritisation outcome is not a small adjustment accompanied by a few targeted efficiencies. It is a substantial contraction in the scientific capacity that STFC can support. Some commitments remain formally protected, but the people, infrastructure and operational resources needed to deliver them are being reduced.
The deepest structural cut is in the National Laboratories component
The most striking number in the official documents is the 58% reduction in the National Laboratories component within the National Laboratories and Estates budget. This is partly masked by the fact that the combined line falls by only 8%, because Estates is forecast to rise by 27%.2
The announced measures include: reducing accelerator and technology support by £8m per annum by 2029, including mothballing CLARA; reducing compute by £10m per annum; reducing instrument and technology development to realise at least £5.5m of savings; challenging RAL Space and Hartree to become cost-neutral to STFC; cutting Boulby Underground Mine’s operational budget by 40%; and prioritising only the most critical building work across the estate.1
This should not be read as a simple efficiency exercise. The listed measures affect capability: accelerator development, compute access, instrument and technology development, underground laboratory operation, and the financial model of major national laboratory units.
Multidisciplinary facilities: kept open, but with reduced capability
The package avoids the immediate closure of Diamond, ISIS or the Central Laser Facility, but their combined budget falls by 15% over four years. UKRI states that this will mean reduced user support and technical assistance, fewer operating days at ISIS, and a search for alternative funding or operating models for the Lasers for Science Facility and the ISIS muon beamlines. If suitable arrangements cannot be found, some of these capabilities may close.1
An open letter from members of the multidisciplinary-facilities user community stresses that the consequences extend well beyond the facilities themselves. ISIS and Diamond support research across physics, chemistry, materials science, engineering and the life sciences, including work on batteries, quantum materials, pharmaceuticals, catalysis and advanced manufacturing. Reduced operation therefore affects university research groups, students and early-career researchers, as well as the specialist instrument scientists based at the facilities.5 The letter also questions whether the broader MDF user community was sufficiently involved in the prioritisation process. It highlights the threatened ISIS muon programme as a particularly concerning example: its authors estimate that it uses only around 3% of the proton beam and around 3% of ISIS staff, while making a much larger scientific contribution in an area where the UK currently has international strength.
Taken together, these figures describe more than a temporary savings exercise. They point to a sustained reduction in the people, technical support, facility access and specialist capability available across the STFC portfolio. The official presentation emphasises what has been protected: subscriptions, the continued operation of the main multidisciplinary facilities, and postdoctoral numbers relative to 2025/26. The harder reality is that these protections sit inside a substantially reduced scientific system. The question for UKRI, DSIT and Parliament is therefore not simply whether STFC reaches financial balance by 2029/30. It is whether the scientific capability lost along the way can be justified—or rebuilt.
Sources
- UKRI, “Explainer: STFC prioritisation outcomes 2026 to 2030”, published 9 July 2026.
- Letter from Professor Sir Ian Chapman and Professor Michele Dougherty to Dame Chi Onwurah MP, 10 July 2026.
- House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee statement, 10 July 2026.
- Financial Times, “Chemicals companies hit out at UK science funding cuts”, 9 July 2026.
- “Open Letter in Response to STFC Prioritisation Activity Outcomes for the Multidisciplinary Facilities User Communities” , 14 July 2026.
- Inflation-adjusted comparisons: used in this article are based on a 27.2% cumulative historical inflation input to April 2026 from the Bank of England inflation calculator, followed by 1.88% annual growth for 2026/27 to 2029/30. UKRI describes the 1.88% assumption as having been set by HM Treasury during Spending Review 2025. The resulting 15.7% PPAN figure is an analytical comparison with the 2021/22 actual-cost baseline, not an official UKRI measure.
Dr Lucien Heurtier
London, 15/07/2026