Post by Michael Plevin

Others have already said it, but it is definitely worth repeating: The #UKRI "pause" on funding really is another blow to #ECRs. If you are coming to the end of a #PhD or are in your first #post-doc in the UK then this news comes on the back of a very challenging last ten years. There was the Brexit vote in 2016 and the endless turmoil since, including the removal of freedom of movement and the accompanying loss of work and study opportunities in mainland Europe. There was the pandemic in 2020 and the enormous and ongoing impact on study, work, health. There is the current higher eduction funding crisis, with higher class numbers, closed courses and departments, forced redundancies and voluntary severance. And now there is a shake up of the UKRI research funding mechanism that finances an enormous portion of post-doctoral research positions in the UK. Basically, since the end of high school, ECRs have had to navigate one seismic crisis after another; none of which were of their making. I am truly puzzled why UKRI has chosen this hard stop route, why they can't phase-in new funding mechanisms in parallel to a clearly sign-posted phase-out of existing ones, and why their communication has been so wanting. UKRI is full of good people doing important work under challenging circumstances, but the lack of plans and information has created a vacuum that is currently being filled with considerable anxiety across all levels of academic research. ECRs have had a rough decade. They are now being forced to make career-critical decisions about their next steps with no knowledge of what the university post-doc research space will look like. UKRI really need to provide more and clearer information and soon.