The UK science budget has been spared the agony of further erosion. We’re grateful, but concerns remain, says scientist and campaigner Jennifer Rohn

In the toughest assault on public spending in the UK for decades, the government, on the face of it, has seen fit to spare science from deeper damage.

Chancellor George Osborne, after ordering a five-year real terms decline in the £4.7 billion research budget by freezing it in 2010, today pledged to ensure it keeps pace with inflation for the next five years. This puts it on a par with other priority areas, such as the schools budget.

The outcome of his long-awaited comprehensive spending review is that the damage done to science since austerity politics took hold will not be deepened too much. Which is a relief.

However, this science budget nevertheless appears to be smaller in real terms than in 2010, thanks to inflation since the last spending review, and the analysis tool calculates it will in 2020 – even despite that promised boost of £500 million.

Also, there might be further pitfalls lurking in the fine details, which the Treasury has yet to reveal. For political budgetary statements, the devil is often in the detail. The most worrisome scenario would be that other items of public spending might be quietly “tucked into” the research budget, thereby diluting the whole.

Overall, it could have been a lot worse. But if Osborne truly wanted to secure long-term prosperity, as he has repeatedly claimed and reiterated today, the economic case for bolstering the science base with a real-terms rise is clear.

Rebalancing the UK economy away from financial sector domination – with all the risks that carries if and when the next banking crash strikes – towards a thriving knowledge economy will take much more than a real-terms freeze.

Image credit: Tim Ireland/PA/Press Association Images

WHAT is science for? Most will think of headline-grabbing applications: life-saving medicines, the latest gadgets and clean-energy alternatives that may one day save our planet. Others might cite vast particle colliders that reveal fundamental insights into the workings of the universe.

Few, perhaps, will consider the more prosaic economic implications of a healthy science base. But suggests that science delivers an impressive return on investment – every pound of publicly funded science filters through to produce an ongoing return of 20 pence a year from the private sector. So in many ways, such funding should be a no-brainer.

But in 2010, Britain voted in a government intent on cutting spending to tackle the aftermath of the worst recession since the second world war. The science budget was at risk. Despite having just 1 per cent of the global population, the UK publishes 16 per cent of the most influential research papers, and some studies put us first among all nations for research quality. With a track record of excelling on a shoestring budget, perhaps it could still do well on a little less. And when viewed alongside such emotionally charged services as hospitals and schools, how could it justify a privileged status?

The truth is that cutting investment that can foster growth made little sense, and the scientific community rallied to make this point. The result was protection of sorts: the ring-fencing and freezing of the budget at £4.6 billion in 2010. Since then, this modest pot has depreciated in real terms through inflation, with some estimating a cumulative loss of 20 per cent. The government, with considerable savvy, managed to come across as “science-friendly” by drip-feeding mainly investment on infrastructure in pet projects, such as big data.

But fundamentally, science has suffered. The core budget, divvied up to keep the best labs running, has dwindled close to the point of no return. Recent by Science is Vital, the campaign group I head, showed that UK public investment in research has dipped below 0.5 per cent of GDP – the worst in the G8 group of leading economies, which averages 0.8 per cent.

As the UK prepares to go to the polls again, its scientists are braced for an uncertain future. Although speaking favourably of science in general terms, neither Labour nor the Conservatives – the two leading parties – have pledged to maintain the ring fence, let alone give it the boost it desperately needs. Only the Liberal Democrats and the Greens talk of increases, but neither party is expected to win many votes.

Healthy science is vital to our economic future and prosperity: soon we will find out if the new government really gets this.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Batten down the hatches”