Harry Cliff

Physics cuts put livelihoods, investment and reputation at risk - Research Professional News Cutting the UK out of the Electron-Ion Collider project will damage science, says Daria Sokhan

This ⬇️; the impacts of sudden, unprepared cuts to projects. It's not just science that's lost. It's people. Skills. International collaboration. Opportunity. Futures. Future growth.

Physics cuts put livelihoods, investment and reputation at risk www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v...

Totally agree, but it’s useful as a case study where we can already see what the impact will be. And the Infrastructure Fund cuts are on top of the PPAN cuts.

CERN upgrade to LHCb experiment threatened by UK funding cuts – Physics World Upgrade to the UK-led project is unlikely to go ahead if UK funding cuts are not reversed

Article from @physicsworld.bsky.social about the decision to withdraw UK funding from the @lhcb.bsky.social upgrade, without which LHCb will not be able to exploit the high luminosity LHC (which the UK has already paid for via the CERN subscription).

physicsworld.com/a/cern-upgra...

STFC funding crisis ….. again! When I first came to work in the UK, Astronomy research was mostly funded through the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC). In 2007, PPARC was merged with the Council for the Cen…

I wrote something .... andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2026/02/08/s...

🎙️Our ECR open letter now has a sibling: an open letter from advanced fellows!👥📣

ECRs: ecr-openletter-stfc.github.io/index.html

Adv. Fellows: advancedfellows-openletter-stfc.github.io/index.html

Together, we hope UKRI and the government will hear the many voices across the PPAN community. 🔭🧪📡⚗️

Thanks to @iansample.bsky.social at the Guardian for covering the devastating funding cuts that are being proposed for UK (astro)physics, and the dire impact these would have on young researchers. Will UKRI/STFC reconsider? Will the UKGov step in?🤞👩‍🔬🧪⚛️🔭

www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

Appalling news. @ukri.org has some serious questions to answer. How was prioritisation made and how is UK's world leading international science programmes being tensioned against national facilities?

Conclusion: even if this is a fuck-up, it's a fuck-up whose outcomes are useful to some. It won't be reversed until the political pain of doing nothing about it becomes too great to continue. Dial up the political pressure. Don't let it get buried in the news cycle.

Interesting that National labs and estates listed under the core R&D programme. Perhaps escalating costs there cutting into the PPAN funding in the same partition?

Screenshot of slide from above link

STFC still believed in partitions in 2024: see Mark Thomson's slides here.
indico.cern.ch/event/134850...

Excellent indeed! One might also ask:
- who decided to get rid of the 'partitions' in the STFC budget which we put in place after 2010 to stop grants being used as a balancing line?
- what is the point of having UKRI if all problems need to be solved at the STFC level

I also gather (and @georgeefstathiou.bsky.social may or may not want to confirm) that many STFC staff fully expected STFC to be split up - to separate the grants and facilities as part of the way forward. Ian Chapman shelved this idea, saying no structural change at this time.

Signed. Thanks to all those who organised this.

“I would urge the community to ask questions of STFC… it is worth pursuing questions on the governance of STFC, which are at the heart of the problems.”

“I also believe that their priorities are a reflection of conflicts of interest in the governance structure of STFC. Decisions at STFC are made by the Executive Board which is composed mostly of lab/facility directors and senior programme managers.”

“I believe that it is the STFC Executive Board that has decided to prioritise the facilities ahead of the PPAN [particles, astro, nuclear] programme. This is their decision and is not forced on them by the new allocation formula.”

“I have just finished a 5 year term on the STFC Science Board and now that the problems are in the public domain I am able to speak freely.”

The STFC Funding Crisis – Guest Post by George Efstathiou The following guest post by George Efstathiou is a response to the current STFC funding crisis I blogged about here, and specifically to a letter by the Executive Chair of STFC, Professor Michele D…

Insightful piece by George Efstathiou, who argues that devastating UK government cuts to physics and astronomy are due to conflicts of interest at STFC.

telescoper.blog/2026/02/06/t...

Great to see this letter about loss of young researchers due to deep cuts to physics and astronomy getting noticed in the press: www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

BBC Radio 4 - BBC Inside Science A weekly programme looking at the science that's changing our world.

Listeners to Radio 4’s Inside Science today get an essay from me in defence of astronomy as pure research. Please listen in and let me know what you think.

Show starts 4.30pm GMT here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b...

Ok you asked for it…

Full lyrics available upon request

I wrote a version about Mark’s appointment as CERN DG for our HEP Christmas do. “I am the very model of a CERN Director General, I’ve knowledge of all particles, bosonic and ephemeral”. Writes itself really

Open letter from Early Career Researchers to the UKRI investment plan.

We can't let young people pay the price of "outcome-driven strategies". #stfc #ukri

ecr-openletter-stfc.github.io

If you are a postdoc or PhD, read and sign! 🧬🔭🔬⚗️🧪📡🛰️

As long as it’s the Tom Lehrer version 😂

UKRI to realise that they’re about to decimate areas of research because they happen to be in the same council as a bunch of fixed costs would be nice. Especially as most of the lab costs are not supporting STFC research areas

Thanks, Harry! Glad to have inspired you bookdna.com/book/the-mag...

Harry is a particle physicist at the University of Cambridge @harrycliff.bsky.social