Our Large Hadron Collider results hint at undiscovered physics The behaviour of sub-atomic particles in the LHC seems to disagree with the Standard Model.

We have an exciting new result from LHCb about to be published in PRL - my colleague Mark Smith and I took a deep look at it in The Conversation. theconversation.com/our-large-ha...

STFC chief commits to making no further cuts to postdoc funds - Research Professional News Michele Dougherty also promises top-up funding for additional early career researcher positions after outcry

STFC chief commits to making no further cuts to postdoc funds

Michele Dougherty also promises top-up funding for additional early career researcher positions after outcry

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

This is really quite a turnaround - especially as final decisions about how STFC makes £162m savings is still a way off (June at the earliest)

Definitely counts as a win for all those raising concerns about the impact of STFC cuts on postdocs

As part of this process, we commit to maintaining postdoctoral researchers across PPAN at least at the same level as last year (financial year 2025 to 2026) and hope to be able to increase this over time. This will enable us to fund more postdoctoral researchers than have already been awarded for 2026, and there will be additional postdoctoral opportunities related to both quantum computing and artificial intelligence. The additional funding that restores astronomy grants and consolidated grants to their 2025 to 2026 financial year levels will also be subject to regular peer review, taking guidance from the relevant grants panel as to how to achieve the most efficient process for the rounds concerned. For particle physics theory postdoctoral researchers in particular, I’m aware that we did not issue grants in time for the 2026 particle physics theory recruitment round, and I apologise for this being the case. We are now taking rapid action to address this situation. While grants with the previously agreed 30% reduction are already being distributed to principal investigators at universities, we will make top-up funding available through additional funding streams to appoint postdoctoral researchers according to the ranked list already generated by the Particle Physics Theory Grants Panel for this round. These positions will be able to start on 1 October, noting it can take several months to appoint.

New @ukri.org statement on the #STFC funding cuts

"we commit to maintaining postdoctoral researchers across PPAN at least at the same level as last year"

I think this a win for the fantastic ECR campaign, but last yr's numbers were already cut on the previous..🤔🧪🔭⚛️

ℹ️ www.ukri.org/publications...

“after a request from RPN, UKRI said the STFC budget would be £849m in 2026-27, £821m in 2027-28, £824m in 2028-29 and £842m in 2029-30”

“Since 2023-24, inflation has seen STFC’s budget drop in real terms and is expected to continue to decline
through to 2029-30.”

STFC budget falling in real terms even as UKRI spending rises - Research Professional News New figures show pressure on cash-strapped council, as scientists warn of wide-ranging impacts from cuts

STFC budget falling in real terms even as UKRI spending rises.

New figures show pressure on cash-strapped council, as scientists warn of wide-ranging impacts from cuts.

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

If this is correct, then the claim that the issues in STFC are mostly to do with increased costs, inflation, exchange rates, and being overly ambitious would appear to not be true!

Finally some clarity on the #STFC budget: it's falling in real terms as UKRI spending rises. A conscious decision has been made to decrease UK funding for fundamental physics, despite all the evidence that our blue skies research is key for economic growth.

Thank you @resprofnews.bsky.social!

“Researchers like ourselves, whose curiosity-led fundamental and applied research is funded by other funding councils, rely on STFC-operated facilities,” they wrote. “Without continued access to these facilities, significant areas of UKRI-funded research simply could not proceed.”

While lots of attention has been on expected cuts to the particle physics, astronomy and nuclear programme, hundreds of researchers from other fields are also raising concerns about cuts to STFC-run facilities which they rely on

Full story by @isaacbarbosa1.bsky.social and me: www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

Cuts to UK Astronomy? It’s all about the base(line). Responding to questions from the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, Lord Patrick Vallance (Science Minister) and Sir… ... Cuts to UK Astronomy? It’s all about the base(line). Responding to questions from the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, Lord Patrick Vallance (Science Minister) and Sir I...

Cuts to UK Astronomy? It's all about the base(line).

A short post on LinkedIn highlighting that the effective cuts to UK Astronomy funding are not some far off possibility - they have already started.

www.linkedin.com/posts/profji...

We need a credible plan for science funding in the UK | Letters Letters: Prof Ruben Saakyan and Prof Sheila Rowan respond to Prof Charlotte Deane of UK Research and Innovation

"We need a credible plan for science funding in the UK" Excellent letters in @theguardian.com from Prof Ruben Saakyan and Prof Sheila Rowan on the cuts to @ukri.org - STFC PPAN science www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

We need a credible plan for science funding in the UK | Letters Letters: Prof Ruben Saakyan and Prof Sheila Rowan respond to Prof Charlotte Deane of UK Research and Innovation

www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

We need a credible plan for science funding in the UK | Letters Letters: Prof Ruben Saakyan and Prof Sheila Rowan respond to Prof Charlotte Deane of UK Research and Innovation

"We need a credible plan for science funding in the UK" Excellent letters in @theguardian.com from Prof Ruben Saakyan and Prof Sheila Rowan on the cuts to @ukri.org - STFC PPAN science www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

The 2030+ upgrade would push the limits of precision in decays like this, and train many great students like Joshua, but the national funder in the UK, @ukri.org has other ideas: bsky.app/profile/fran...

This work shows the amazing sensitivity the @lhcb.bsky.social trigger has to decays with lots of hadrons. The upgraded trigger even more so. Run 3 Beauty2Charm analyses underway.

Great to see this analysis out. It was a pleasure to work with Tim Evans and Joshua Horswill on this, supported by my @erc.europa.eu Starting Grant 'Beauty2Charm'. Joshua now works in GreenOps at GreenPixie.com

Joshua's thesis analysis is now on arxiv: bsky.app/profile/lhcb...

Observation of the doubly charmed baryon Ξcc⁺ with the LHCb Run 3 detector - The Ξ+cc mass is measured to be 3619.97±0.83±0.26+1.90−1.30MeV, where the third uncertainty is due to the unknown lifetime, which is assumed to lie in the range 15-160 fs. arxiv.org/abs/2603.28456

Excellent thread by @robinbisson.bsky.social of @resprofnews.bsky.social. We keep being told 'there are no cuts'. This is a concrete example of a 67% cut. Also true in Astro, Nuclear and Particle Experiment. Contrary to Lord Vallance and Sir Ian Chapman of @ukri.org's letter to the Committee.

Brian Cox says UK physics funding cuts are ‘destruction of the future’ Grant cuts of nearly 70% may force university departments to close and ‘annihilate’ research, scientists say

www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

All of the comms I've seen from UKRI this year have been at best incomplete and misleading. It's all depressingly Trumpian - hope you people are proud of yourselves.

In a letter to @chionwurah.bsky.social the Science Minister states:

"~20 particle physics theory post-doctoral researchers [are] funded by UKRI each year."

That’s not typical; that’s the post-cut baseline from 2026.

The previous cycle supported ~60.

Framing this as “normal” obscures a ~70% cut.

This is pure 1984: Lord Vallance promises that there will be no reduction in UK particle theory postdoc numbers from ~20 per year. The actual number awarded in the last round in 2022 was 58.
committees.parliament.uk/publications...

Committee presses government and UKRI for urgent clarification on science research funding cuts - Committees - UK Parliament The Science, Innovation and Technology Committee Chair, Dame Chi Onwurah, has written to the Science Minister, Lord Patrick Vallance, and UKRI Chief Executive, Professor Sir Ian Chapman, seeking furth...

The Committee has also published a followup set of questions. committees.parliament.uk/committee/13...

I simply do not understand the reply to the SIT committee from Lord Vallance - the claim made about the Drayson partitions is fundamentally inconsistent with previous statements over the last decade from STFC.

Brian Cox says UK physics funding cuts are ‘destruction of the future’ Grant cuts of nearly 70% may force university departments to close and ‘annihilate’ research, scientists say

What is the impact of cuts to physics? Read more here ⬇️
www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

Committee presses government and UKRI for urgent clarification on science research funding cuts - Committees - UK Parliament The Science, Innovation and Technology Committee Chair, Dame Chi Onwurah, has written to the Science Minister, Lord Patrick Vallance, and UKRI Chief Executive, Professor Sir Ian Chapman, seeking furth...

The Committee has also published a followup set of questions. committees.parliament.uk/committee/13...

My heart goes out to them. This is a mess above stfc and they're being made to do the work. It feels like some community engagement before wielding the wrecking ball would have solved this.

Drayson partitions considered by govt to be those retractable barriers they use for airport queues.