Is research money being directed in the best way? Remember when everyone celebrated that the science budget had made it unscathed through the Comprehensive Spending Review? Remember when the science department announced its funding allocations in advance of chancellor Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget to reassure us that everything would be just fine? These were welcome moments of relief during an otherwise tricky time for university funding. It seemed as if the Labour government had got the memo on investment in research and, with Patrick Vallance as science minister, was honouring its pre-election words.