New UK science policy thinktank aims to ‘restore joy’ to research

Reassessing how UK research funding systems change in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) could help “bring more joy” to the working lives of scientists, the co-founder of a new science policy thinktank has argued.

“AI is a massive opportunity for science but it also risks exacerbating existing dysfunctions that have distorted the research landscape,” explained Laura Ryan, who, with former ministerial adviser Ben Johnson, has co-founded Science Works, a research policy thinktank focused on “accelerating British science and technology”.

“For grant assessment we’ve seen the proliferation of applications to unsustainable levels thanks to AI but even at the level of the laboratory, this technology is having a huge impact,” she continued, noting the “unrealistic expectations” for frequent publication faced by early career researchers.

“We need to be careful that PhDs don’t end up becoming expensive technicians asked to carry out endless tasks created by AI,” continued Ryan on the growing trend for principal investigators using AI to generate hypotheses that are then tested by more junior researchers.

Having taken a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Cambridge and worked in neuroscience laboratories before becoming a science policy analyst at the Tony Blair Institute, Ryan is one of the few wonks with a clinical research background. As such, she is keen that Science Works’ output incorporates researchers’ views to ensure they directly benefit from its work.

“I hope our work can bring more joy to scientists and help them to use their time more productively, incentivising good research rather than the mountains of GenAI slop that many are forced to wade through,” she told Times Higher Education.

This month the thinktank published its first research paper and, together with the Wellcome Trust, has recently issued a call for evidence on the theme “Reorganising Research”, which aims to “uncover examples of the labs, departments, institutes, programmes and funding systems across the UK that are doing things differently to the mainstream academic model”. An essay competition on a similar theme, closing at the end of July, is offering a £3,000 first prize.

Branded as non-partisan and not-for-profit, the thinktank is supported by a number of major figures from academia and the science policy community, with former UK science minister David Willetts and former Barack Obama science adviser Tom Kalil joining its strategic advisory board.

The thinktank joins a growing group of organisations tackling how British research could be funded more effectively, including innovation thinktank Centre for British Progress (formerly UK Day One), which launched in 2024. Alongside more generalist thinktanks tackling innovation and the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, launched in 2023 to fund disruptive research, there is also the Research on Research Institute (RoRI), launched in 2019, which explores metascience and research funding issues, drawing mainly on academic contributors.

Explaining Science Works’ role within this ecosystem, Ryan said she saw its work as “complementary” to RoRI’s outputs.

“We feel there is a middle space – between academia, government and other institutes – that we could fill. RoRI belongs more to the academic community but Ben and I come from the position of working in government or research labs so we want to support experimental things from those perspectives,” she said.

In a Substack post, co-founder Johnson explained that the new outfit could support the case for public investment in research in a way that university-led research cannot, arguing that “with regret, the sector cannot be trusted to do by itself, because – deservedly or not – the stuff trotted out by sector bodies is tainted by the bad smell of self-interest and status-quo preservation”.

“What’s needed is an honest and objective picture,” he writes, warning that the UK’s “reliable political consensus that research and innovation are worth backing…now seems to be gradually draining away”.

To influence the policy debate, Science Works will operate differently to academics or typical thinktanks, said Ryan. “Rather than producing a pipeline of papers, we want to identify key problems and look at each one in different way. That might mean writing a research report for government or an institute or doing something else to help build consensus for a position,” she said.

With a new prime minister fond of innovation projects soon to enter Downing Street, it might seem like a good moment to launch a science policy thinktank. Ryan does not dismiss the idea but their focus is on the longer term, she said.

“We’re not really tied to that kind of retail politics – lots of the people making the real changes are not elected officials,” she said.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com