Did George Osborne give science a happy New Year?

At first glance, there appeared to be a lot of gifts under the Spending Review Christmas tree last year.

The Science Budget will be maintained in real terms until 2020, with a new £1.5-billion “Global Challenges” fund. There will be a further £5 billion over five years for health research too. Innovate UK’s budget received a flat-cash ring fence, and extra funding for high-cost, lab-based university courses will be protected.

But like a spoiled child on Christmas morning, I was left wondering about what we didn’t get. We were promised a new policy to protect Government departments’ R&D budgets, which account for almost half of public investment in R&D but have taken a huge hit since 2010. We hoped to see policies to boost high-level apprenticeships in science and engineering, where there is currently a major skills gap. And we would have loved to be told that the Higher Education Innovation Fund will be protected.

There was also a big surprise: the Chancellor, George Osborne, announced his intention to implement the recommendations of Sir Paul Nurse’s review of the Research Councils. Like a pony from my parents, I wasn’t expecting it and I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it! Sir Paul’s most-significant recommendation was the creation of a new body called Research UK, which will oversee the seven Research Councils and provide greater coordination. The Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills – which saw its budget cut by 17% – will hope this will deliver efficiency savings. The research community, however, will worry that any change will create confusion and upset the delicate balance of funding for different disciplines. Innovate UK and Quality-Related funding are also to be brought in under the umbrella for the first time. It isn’t being portrayed as a reorganisation, but it is likely to raise fears of one; it would make a large overhall of the funding system much easier in the future.

Questions also remain about the Science Budget. Will the Global Challenges Fund, which will come from the Department for International Development’s  budget, be more restricted than researchers are used to? Will it mean some disciplines, like medical research and agricultural science, are prioritised at the expense of others? And what will even be covered by the Science Budget? The Government tucked a lot into it in 2010. They may have stretched what it covers again. We will have to wait and see. So it isn’t really clear yet whether Osborne has been nice to the science and engineering community or played a very naughty trick. The Spending Review didn’t deliver the cuts many were expecting, but we could still all be left with a very bad hangover as the New Year goes on.

Author: Dr Martin Turner is Policy Advisor, Campaign for Science and Engineering at CaSE, the Campaign for Science and Engineering.