To: 

Professor Sir Ian Thomas Chapman FREng FRS FInstP, Chief Executive of UKRI
Professor Michele Dougherty CBE FRS FRAS, Executive Chair of STFC
The Rt Hon Lord Vallance of Balham GCB FRS KCB FMedSci FRCP HonFREng, Minister of State for Science, Innovation, Research and Nuclear
The Rt Hon Dame Chi Onwurah DBE MP, Chair of the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee
The Rt Hon Liz Kendall MP, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
Baroness Lloyd of Effra CBE, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
James Frith MP

We write on behalf of the UK Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and Solar-Terrestrial (MIST) community, approximately 500 researchers across 25 institutions, to express our grave concern at the proposed reductions to STFC funding and the damage they will inflict on national security, critical infrastructure resilience, and UK space science. 

STFC must find £162 million in cumulative savings by 2029–30. Grant funding for Particle Physics, Astronomy and Nuclear Physics (PPAN) is expected to fall to 70% of 2023–24 levels, building on a 15% cut already imposed last year, with project leaders asked to model reductions of up to 60%. The House of Commons Science Select Committee has described these cuts as "wholly unacceptable" and "a failure." We share that assessment. 

MIST science underpins national resilience — and is disproportionately exposed 

MIST researchers study the Sun–Earth system: the solar wind, planetary magnetospheres, thermospheres and ionospheres, and the physical processes linking solar activity to ground-level infrastructure impacts. This work is the scientific foundation upon which operational space weather forecasting depends. 

The MIST community is uniquely and disproportionately harmed by these cuts.

While MIST science falls under STFC's remit, it makes relatively limited use of STFC-managed large-scale facilities. We do benefit from specific capabilities (e.g. RAL Space, scientific computing and, indirectly, ISIS, ESO, and SKA), but not at the scale of other research areas that rely heavily on facilities such as Diamond, or international subscriptions such as CERN. Nevertheless, we still absorb the financial consequences of rising facility costs. This structural flaw was identified when STFC was created in 2007, caused a crisis requiring ministerial intervention in 2008, and is now producing the same result at a far greater scale. 

Cutting MIST research directly undermines national security 

Severe space weather is one of the highest-priority natural hazards on the UK National Risk Register, with potential for billions of pounds in economic damage. The Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre (MOSWOC), one of only three 24/7 space weather prediction centres globally, depends directly on the scientific understanding, models and trained personnel that the MIST community produces. The £19.9 million UKRI-funded SWIMMR programme, designed to strengthen MOSWOC's capabilities, drew its expertise from our community. 2025 was a record-breaking year for severe space weather alerts to critical infrastructure operators, underscoring that this is not a distant or theoretical risk. 

These cuts will therefore:

• Undermine the UK's ability to forecast geomagnetic storms threatening the electricity grid, satellites, GNSS, aviation and telecommunications.

• Destroy the pipeline of scientists who advise government and defence.

• Compromise delivery of the Severe Space Weather Preparedness Strategy and the National Space Strategy.

• Squander existing multi-million pound investments including the UK-built plasma analyser for ESA's Vigil mission. 

It is contradictory to identify severe space weather as a top-tier national risk while defunding the community that underpins the UK's ability to understand, forecast and respond to it. 

The early career pipeline is already breaking 

MIST researchers operate predominantly on short-term contracts. With grant start dates slipping by six months or more, new positions vanishing, and no bridging mechanisms available, early career researchers face immediate employment gaps. The STFC Executive Chair has acknowledged that the UK will lose postdoctoral researchers. For the MIST community, small enough that losing a handful of specialists in solar wind modelling, radiation belt physics or ionospheric forecasting can eliminate entire UK capabilities, this is catastrophic and irreversible. Unlike facilities, a dispersed human workforce cannot be reassembled. 

These researchers also feed the UK space sector, defence, satellite operations, insurance, risk modelling and telecommunications, which are precisely the sectors identified as strategic priorities in the Government's Industrial Strategy. 

What we are asking for 

1. Protect MIST research funding at a minimum of flat real-terms levels. Our community uses a proportionally small number of STFC facilities and should not subsidise facility cost overruns through the destruction of the MIST research base. 

2. Explicitly recognise space weather research as strategically essential within UKRI's outcome-focused framework. If the new model aligns research with government priorities, space weather should be a beneficiary, not a casualty. 

3. Provide immediate bridging support for early career researchers to prevent permanent loss of trained specialists in a nationally critical area. 

4. Resolve the structural tension between facilities costs and research grants through ring-fencing, re-allocation of facility costs to beneficiary councils, or structural reform — as originally introduced in the “Drayson partition”, and recommended by the RAS, the Heads of Physics Forum, and the Campaign for Science and Engineering. 

5. Provide the MIST community with a clear account of how its research will be classified within the new funding buckets, what opportunities will be available, and on what timeline. 

6. Convene a dedicated meeting to discuss the specific impacts on space weather research and the UK's ability to meet its national risk commitments. 

Conclusion 

The Government has designated severe space weather a top-tier national risk, invested tens of millions in forecasting infrastructure, and stated that curiosity-driven research is protected. The proposed cuts are incompatible with every one of these commitments. The damage is already being incurred. We urge you to act before it becomes irreversible. 

Signed,