More than 2,500 academics from dozens of leading British universities and research institutes have signed an open letter urging the government to reverse controversial plans to pull £120m in funding for research in some of the poorest parts of the world.
The letter, which comes just a day after the integrated review promised to deliver ‘Global Britain’, warns that planned cuts in Britain’s overseas development assistance budget threaten “the sustainability and credibility of UK research leadership”.
Academics behind the open letter told openDemocracy that the proposed cuts will have a drastic impact on global research work, including that on pandemics, and will have serious repercussions for climate change research ahead of this year’s COP26 in Glasgow.
