UK research council leaders are bracing for cuts to quality-related (QR) research funding of up to £100 million a year ahead of next week’s Spring Statement – a move likely to lead to a fresh round of redundancies at UK universities.

While Universities UK (UUK) has been calling on the Westminster government to provide a “sustained real-terms increase” to the £2 billion of excellence-led funding awarded annually to institutions, financial modelling prepared by Research England reveals that the agency has begun considering how it would cope with a potential cut of almost 8 per cent in mainstream annual QR funding from next month.

According to a briefing shared at Research England’s November council meeting, the funder has game-planned three scenarios for 2024-25: a “flat cash” settlement, a £50 million reduction or a £100 million cut.

Even the best-case flat cash scenario was “still a decrease”, says the briefing, which explains an “uplift of £29 million would be required for a real-terms settlement in 2025-26”.

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Other scenarios are bleaker for universities, which use QR funding to fund the salaries of researchers, build and maintain laboratories, provide teaching relief for early-career researchers and other research-related activities.

If a £50 million cut was introduced to all strategic institutional research funding (SIRF) on a pro rata basis, this would constitute a 2.4 per cent reduction in income, the briefing explains. A £100 million cut would mean a 4.8 per cent cut, it adds.

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Spending Review financial modelling: Research England council meeting, November 2024

In one of the scenarios, however, officials describe how the potential cuts might be applied to “mainstream QR only”, a situation that would see QR income streams related to postgraduate research students, charity-related grants, business research and national libraries protected.

Although this part of the document is redacted, if a £100 million cut was solely applied to the , this would equate to a 7.7 per cent cut, ����Vlog has calculated.

If the cut was applied to mainstream QR funding and business research QR, worth £114 million in 2024-25 – another “hybrid” scenario under consideration – this would equate to a 7 per cent cut.

News of the potentially drastic cuts to QR funding follow persistent lobbying by UK universities about the importance of QR to UK science, with UUK and the Russell Group arguing the block grants awarded on the basis of Research Excellence Framework results are crucial for breakthrough science and the UK’s overall research and development ecosystem.

The academic sector has sought to underline its importance to the Labour government’s growth agenda as chancellor Rachel Reeves prepares to announce what are expected to be significant cuts to departmental budgets in her Spring Statement on 26 March – which some have already billed an “emergency mini-budget”.

John Womersley, former executive chair of the Science and Technology Facilities Council, said that “modelling cuts is not new at all”, but felt that the Research England briefing suggested cuts were inevitable.

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“It seems to take for granted that no outcome better than flat cash is likely, and asks the Research England council to give a steer on areas to protect or prioritise,” he said. “We have clearly gone past the stage of modelling cuts to show Treasury that the outcome is unpalatable, and reached the stage of modelling cuts because we know that they are coming.”

However, the financial crisis engulfing many universities – including research-intensive ones – may cause the Treasury to consider the impact of deep cuts on QR funding, particularly if it might hasten the closure of a UK university.

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“Deep cuts in QR will lead to greater financial pressure on higher education, more redundancies, and may even tip some institutions into bankruptcy,” said Womersley.

A Research England spokeswoman said it was “normal practice [as part of the spending review process] to consider a range of scenarios across our funding including increases and decreases with some at the extremes”.

“These scenarios do not necessarily reflect predictions of the expected outcomes,” she added. “Research England’s priorities are to maintain stability of the system, ensure our universities remain well positioned to continue to generate excellent research and impact, and to deliver the government’s strategic objectives.”

The potential cuts to QR funding modelled by Research England also raise the possibility that other research councils may face similar cuts from next month, with UK Research and Innovation chief executive Ottoline Leyser warning that as-yet-unannounced budget settlements for 2025-26 will be “tight”.

Experts have, however, raised concerns that QR funding is particularly vulnerable, as its open-ended and often unheralded use by universities does not align with Labour’s desire for spending to be focused on its five missions, including economic growth and fixing the NHS.

“QR funding does not map so naturally on to the new thinking around missions and challenges, and for that reason it would logically be subject to deeper cuts than other parts of UKRI,” said Womersley, who added, however, that the “politics” of institutional closures might avoid deep cuts to QR.

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“The logic of [science minister’s] Patrick Vallance’s vision for UKRI may well say ‘cut QR’ but the realities of the headlines may actually protect it from cuts more than the other parts of UKRI,” he said.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com