UK Government to Boost R&D Spending

The 2020 budget includes a 15 percent increase in public funding for research and development next year, but some scientists want more details on where the money will go.

Written byCatherine Offord

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The British government has announced a 15 percent increase in public funding for research and development as part of its 2020 budget in a move that was generally welcomed by scientists, Science reported yesterday (March 12). The boost, which represents the largest-ever year-over-year increase in R&D funding, is to be followed by further injections of money over the next three years, including £800 million for an agency modeled after DARPA in the US. Full details of how the money is to be used won’t be available until the government’s spending review later this year.

“In a welcome move, the Government has supercharged public investment in science, delivering investment faster and further than it had promised,” Sarah Main, the executive director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, says in a statement. “This investment has the potential to accelerate the Government’s efforts to tackle challenges such as ...

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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