Royal Society response to Autumn Budget
28 October 2026Responding to the Chancellor's Autumn Budget announcement, Paul Nurse, President of 蘑菇视频, said:
“It is good to see the Government embrace the spirit of innovation in the UK. Most of the UK’s fastest growing companies are based on the application of science and research, whether that is in AI or healthtech, fintech or clean energy. The challenge for the Government is to take the long-term view, not only in supporting the later stages of applying scientific knowledge but also by ensuring that we do not strangle the discovery science that drives it. In next year’s spending review, the Government must get that balance right and maintain strong support for the knowledge creation that is at the heart of long-term, sustainable growth.
“It is also welcome to see that there may be improvements on visas to help support innovative companies attract the scientific expertise from around the world the UK needs to complement our own home-grown talent.
“Reallocations of capital budgets to support defence will impact all areas of Government spending, including science. Security and defence are a central role of the Government and, ultimately, are based on scientific knowledge and innovation. It is not just the battlefield hardware that keeps us safe. In the Second World War, it was maths that underpinned codebreaking. And engineering gave us the spitfire, physics produced RADAR and biology and chemistry delivered antibiotics for our wounded soldiers. Churchill understood this and so should his successors. Today’s drones are built on research and I have visited the scientists in universities in Ukraine that are at the cutting-edge of those developments. AI and quantum computing will play a crucial role in our future security. We must continue to support discovery science because if we are smarter, we will be stronger.
“The Chancellor’s ‘unshakeable commitment’ to net zero is also clear and needed. We now have to invest in developing and rolling out technologies that can decarbonise our economy, increase energy security, and reduce energy costs.”