Co-Founder, ScienceBank & Grant Review AI | AI-powered NIH-style grant review & compliance | Helping researchers & institutions secure more funding while publishing more.
Sharing this post because it raises a point that feels especially relevant here in the UK. Even with the cuts and pressures in the US, their research spending still operates on a scale we can only dream of. Google on its own spends more on R&D than the UK government does nationally. Microsoft isn’t far behind. That’s troubling for the British research ecosystem. Universities here are already under strain—shrinking budgets, political pressures, international barriers—yet they’re expected to keep pace with a global research landscape where individual corporations outspend entire nations. The risk is clear: without sustained investment, UK universities could slide into being teaching-focused institutions while the frontier of discovery shifts to US tech companies. And that leaves vital areas—fundamental science, social sciences, humanities, and research for global challenges—underfunded and overlooked. We should be asking: how do we ensure UK universities remain not just historic institutions, but future-shaping engines of discovery?
Founder and Managing Director at Research Consulting | Enhancing the effectiveness and impact of research | >150 organisations helped to date
I've worked in and with universities throughout my professional life. They are fascinating organisations, simultaneously ancient and cutting-edge. Our oldest universities, like ninth-century Al-Qarawiyyin University, have been around longer than most nation states. This Nature special edition does a great job of setting out the breadth of pressures they face today: funding models under strain, research budgets squeezed, political attacks on their independence, visa restrictions undermining international mobility, peer review systems breaking down, and mental health crises among overloaded academics. For me, there's a key threat that Nature's analysis only addresses in passing: how much cutting edge R&D now happens in corporate labs, funded at levels university researchers can only dream of. The UK government's record £20 billion ($25.5bn) R&D budget for 2024/25 sounds impressive, until you realise Google alone spends £39.5 billion ($50bn) and Microsoft £23.2 billion ($29bn) annually on R&D. Individual tech companies are outspending entire national research programmes, fundamentally shifting where breakthrough discoveries emerge. Are universities destined to become teaching-focused institutions while breakthrough research migrates to tech companies? And what happens to research in areas that don't interest big tech or pharma - fundamental science, humanities, social sciences, or research addressing challenges in developing countries? Universities exist to pursue knowledge for its own sake and tackle problems that are crucial for society's long-term wellbeing. It is in all our interests that they remain central to the global research endeavour. https://lnkd.in/efHBmT2F #HigherEducation #Universities #ResearchPolicy #Innovation #FutureOfEducation
