Patrick Vallance surprised me last week when he told MPs that the funding delay which has left the UK’s theoretical physics community unable to hire anybody this cycle was not caused by budget cuts.

The recent delay of award of the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s particle/high energy theory consolidated grant round had serious consequences that were perhaps not anticipated by those making the decisions. The scientists funded by this round, who work on everything from string theory to precision particle physics to particle cosmology are all awarded money at the same time once a cycle. These cycles were previously three years in length, but the coming cycle was to last four years, starting in autumn 2026.

The international theory community has an informal agreement that the vast majority of groups adhere to, such that deadlines to accept offers for positions starting in September/October of a particular year are not set before the middle of the January of the same year. The purpose is to ensure that early career researchers get to choose their optimal destination, rather than us all engaging in an arms race to set our deadlines earlier and earlier.

In the UK, we traditionally find out about how much funding we have been awarded via consolidated theory – grants offered to scientific areas rather than individuals – in the autumn, just less than a year before the end of one funding cycle and the start of the next. It is then a big rush to try to advertise those positions before January to meet the internationally agreed deadline and therefore be at the table for the best candidates.

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This cycle, the funding announcement for the grants we applied for (in February 2025) has been delayed and the result of this is that, from October, only those few departments that have no-cost extensions will have STFC theory postdocs active. Continuity of research will therefore be damaged. 

It may be partially true that some of this delay is because STFC has recently converted to the different UKRI online grants application system. Nevertheless, it feels that the research council’s recent decision to slash funding by £162 million cannot have helped it arrive at a final budget for our area – and we were informed at the annual theory meeting just before Christmas that part of the delay was due to funding uncertainties.

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What is more worrying is that Vallance and UK Research and Innovation chief executive Ian Chapman seem to be giving the impression that when these delays are over, everything will be OK. Last week, for instance, Vallance told the House of Commons’ Science, Innovation and Technology Committee that “the money for those postdocs is still available and that work can happen now”. But, as I have explained, it is not that simple as it is already too late to advertise positions for this year.

Moreover, as an ex-member of the STFC’s particle theory panel, I know that at the start of the previous cycle we were allocating £22 million over three years. My understanding is that in this cycle there will be a net reduction of more than 35 per cent on that figure. When salary increases and overheads are taken into account, that will amount to a reduction of much more than 50 per cent in the total number of postdoctoral research assistant (PDRA) years funded.

The application of highly abstract mathematical skills to concrete physics problems is something that our early-career researchers develop quickly and at a deep level. This makes them highly sought after by employers, so it is all too familiar to researchers in this field to see our very best and brightest young colleagues leave to join industry. That is bad news for us, good news for the UK economy. But I do wonder if ministers truly appreciate how many physics postdocs go into specialist careers in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and quantitative analysis in the City, areas critical to the UK’s growth goals.

These cuts to the theory grant come in the context of wider cuts to what the STFC calls particle physics, astronomy and nuclear physics (PPAN), which have only just started to become apparent. Promised upgrade money for the LHCb experiment at Cern, critical for understanding why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe, has apparently evaporated, creating consternation among our partners. 

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In other areas of PPAN, there have already been big cuts. For example, the shortening of postdoctoral contracts in particle experiment programmes from four years to 18 months led to job insecurity and resulted in the UK becoming a less attractive destination for skilled experimental scientists. Our colleagues in astronomy have faced huge reductions in the number of grants awarded in the past year.

Quite apart from the immediate economic damage caused by all these researchers no longer being in the UK, there is also a more long-term concern: particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology is regularly cited by young people as the reason they decided to study physics at university in the first place.

It may be that the government has decided that our field is not strategically important, so heavy cuts are appropriate. However, if they are doing that, then they should do so with their eyes wide open to the potential implications in the future for the UK workforce. A 35 per cent cut to the theory consolidated grant will have devastating implications for our ability to attract the brightest and the best to our country.

is a professor of physics at King’s College London.

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