‘Our name is going to be mud’: Scientists slam UK CERN funding cut
Key Points
- UKRI withdrew over £250 million in committed funding for a planned Large Hadron Collider upgrade at CERN.
- The cut coincided with the start of the first British CERN director general's term in 30 years.
- STFC's head admitted the move "certainly weakens our standing".
- MPs said the decision displayed a fundamental lack of joined-up thinking.
UK Research and Innovation withdrew more than £250 million in committed funding for a planned upgrade to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, placing the project in jeopardy just as the first British Director General in 30 years began their term.
This was revealed in a new House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee report published on Tuesday (7 July).
“Our name is going to be mud if this is not sorted out,” UCL Professor Jon Butterworth told the committee. The head of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) acknowledged the move “certainly weakens our standing”.
The funding withdrawal came as STFC staff were asked in January 2026 to model spending cuts to focus on “a more concentrated set of priorities”, as part of UKRI’s transition to a new funding model dividing its roughly £9 billion annual spend into three buckets: curiosity-driven research, strategic government and societal priorities, and support for innovative companies.
The committee said it received a flood of letters from researchers fearing for the future of their fields, with concern that high-risk curiosity-driven research not primarily focused on economic growth would lose out.
Trust already damaged
MPs said the CERN decision had damaged trust in the UK as a partner.
“Marking the beginning of the Director General’s term by abruptly pulling promised funding from a planned upgrade at CERN – threatening the project’s future – displays a fundamental lack of joined-up thinking and potentially jeopardises the UK’s relationship with the EU on issues of science and innovation,” the committee said.
“The hasty and abrupt way the decision was communicated compounds the damage to the UK’s standing with its international partners.”
The committee said it had visited CERN in 2025 and had hoped to celebrate the British appointment as a major science diplomacy win following the UK’s exit from the EU, but that the success had been “overshadowed by events”.
MPs said they supported the principles behind UKRI’s funding reforms but warned the emphasis on economic growth “should not be at the expense of the longer-term, curiosity-driven work that is needed to drive scientific progress”.
The committee recommended that science diplomacy be explicitly incorporated into UKRI’s remit.
