In Manchester last week we celebrated 20 years since the Nobel prize-winning discovery of graphene by researchers at the University of Manchester. Graphene has completely reshaped many research areas including materials science and condensed matter physics, reaching far beyond into life sciences, and now gradually but steadily expanding into industrial and consumer products.

The breakthrough that allowed scientists to first isolate graphene was only possible because universities had the funding and flexibility to allow scientists to explore freely in early-stage, blue-sky-thinking research – a vital aspect of our dual support research funding system, which has often led to unexpected commercial gains. In more recent times, it has led to gamechanging work such as advances in cleantech, renewable materials and, most notably, the Covid vaccine. And these are just the examples that make headlines.

Across the UK, research commercialisation at Russell Group universities alone supports more than 250,000 jobs. These achievements don’t always come about through flash-in-the-pan, eureka moments. They are the result of years of nurturing a pipeline of talent and innovation, building expertise and knowledge clusters – all of which need supporting with long-term, stable and robust funding, which now appears to be under threat. At a moment when the government is focused on growth, regionally and nationally, protecting research and development (R&D) funding is a crucial piece of the puzzle to build the right environment for economic resilience over the next decade and beyond.

If the government follows through on rumoured budget squeezes in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, it’s the blue-sky research and innovation that is likely to suffer, as universities and other research institutions will be forced to make increasingly difficult decisions about the kind of research they can support, and who they can fund to keep doing it. UK universities typically leverage more than £1bn in R&D investment from UK charities each year, and over £5.6bn from business – and the impact of that research is everywhere.

Take cancer, where 10-year survival rates have doubled since the 1970s. Thanks to advances in research, diagnosis and treatment, more than 1m deaths have been avoided in the UK since the mid-1980s. Internationally, charities such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation can of course invest anywhere, but choose to partner with us in the UK because of the exceptional quality of our R&D base.