Letter of support from International academics
against cuts to funding UK theoretical particle and high energy physics

We the undersigned wish to protest against the current cuts to UK high energy particle physics theory grants by signing up to the letter below. The open letter and list of signatories are printed on this page. Individuals who wish to support this initiative may add their name as a signatory by completing the form below. This letter will be sent to Lord Patrick Vallance (Minister of State for Science, Innovation, Research and Nuclear), Liz Kendall (Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology), Chi Onwurah MP (Chair of the UK House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee), and Prof. Sir Ian Chapman (CEO of UKRI).

    Open Letter

    Signature Count:000

We are signing this letter to raise serious concerns about the proposed cuts to high energy physics theory and particle theory in the United Kingdom. The UK is a world leader in this area: its historical activity led to the development of the Standard Model of particle physics and the ongoing development of string theory. UK theoretical physicists provide essential input to major international experiments, including the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and next-generation programmes in neutrino physics, gravitational waves, and cosmology, enabling rigorous interpretation of data and the extraction of fundamental insight. The strength of the UK community lies in its intellectual breadth and integration: researchers operate across phenomenology, formal theory, and their interface, and sustained dialogue between these areas underpins the UK's leading role in global collaborations and internationally recognised research groups. In parallel, UK theorists advance the theoretical foundations of fundamental physics.

These groups and scientists can only operate thanks to critical funding by UK research council funding.

The current apparent scale of the cuts to the Particle Physics, Astronomy and Nuclear Physics area (30% to the overall budget) will result, when rising costs are taken into account, in a much greater than 50% cut in the number of postdoctoral researchers active in these areas in the UK. This will have a devastating effect on the ability of the UK to maintain its leading role in the subject.

Such funding decisions will affect the famously excellent reputation of the UK university sector. It will risk the health of UK physics departments and will therefore damage economic growth in the UK. Many scientists trained in this sector subsequently move into senior positions in technical industries such as machine learning and finance. Theorists at universities play a crucial role in the training and development of the inventors and disruptors of the future.

We urge UK politicians and leaders in the UK funding organisations to carefully consider the implications of the current direction of funding decisions before it is too late and irreparable damage is done to the UK theory community.

77 signees

signatories will appear here (Full List Accessible Here)

N.B. The undersigned are signing as individuals, and not as representatives of their institutions. The institutions only appear for identification purposes.
Professor Richard Efrain Ruiz, Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
Professor Pavel Nadolsky, Michigan State University, USA
Professor Joseph Bramante, Queen's University, Canada
Professor Krzysztof Golec-Biernat, Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Acadamy of Sciences, Poland
Professor Liam McAllister, Cornell University, USA
Professor Giulio Falcioni, Università di Torino, Italy
Professor Gustavo Burdman, University of São Paola, Brazil
Professor Porter Williams, University of Pittsburgh, USA
Professor Krzysztof Golec-Biernat, Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Acadamy of Sciences, Poland
Professor Alexander Lenz, Siegen University, Germany
Professor Laurence Yaffe, University of Washington, USA
Professor Roberto Contino, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
Professor Marcus Luty, University of California Davis, USA
Professor Lorenzo Magnea, University of Torino, Italy
Professor Ashoke Sen, ICTS-TIFR Bengaluru, India
Professor Xi Yin, Harvard University, USA
Professor Carlos Wagner, University of Chicago, USA
Professor Stefano Forte, Milan University, Italy
Professor Kiwoon Choi,Institute for Basic Science, Korea
Dr. Jayden Newstead, University of Melbourne, Australia
Professor Chris Power, University of Western Australia, Australia
Professor Nicole Bell, University of Melbourne,Australia
Professor Miroslav Filipovic, Western Sydney University, Australia
Dr. Basem, El-Menoufi, Monash University USA
Dr. Connor Bottrell, International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, Australia
Dr. Andrew Saint, University of Melbourne, Australia
Dr. Vincent Vennin, CNRS, France
Professor Martin Schmaltz, Boston University, USA
Professor Raymond Volkas, University of Melbourne, Australia
Professor Matthew Dolan, University of Melbourne, Australia
Dr. Giovani Dalla Valle Garcia, University of Melbourne, Australia
Professor Martin White, Adelaide University, Australia
Dr. Alasdair McLean, Adelaide University, Australia
Professor Ansgar Denner, University of Würzburg, Germany
Professor Juan Rojo, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands
Professor José Ignacio Latorre, Centre for Quantum Technologies, Singapore
Professor Andrzej Siodmok, Jagiellonian University, Poland
Professor Roberto Tateo, University of Torino, Italy
Professor Rafel Escribano, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain
Professor Pedro Schwaller, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz
Professor Michael Schmidt, UNSW Sydney, Australia
Professor Paolo Torrielli, University of Torino, Italy
Professor Daniel Grumiller, TU Wien, Austria
Professor Andreas Ipp, TU Wien, Austrian
Professor Francisco Gil Pedro, University of Bologna, Ital
Dr. Christos Charmousis, CNRS, France
Professor Karim Noui, Paris Saclay University, France
Professor Mark Trodden, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Professor Christophe Grojean, DESY and Humboldt University, Germany
Professor Anton Rebhan, TU Wien, Austria
Professor Justin Khoury, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Dr. Aditya Pathak, DESY, Germany
Professor Geraldine Servant, DESY & U. Hamburg, Germany
Professor Konstantin Zarembo, Nordita
Professor Juan Maldacena, Institute for Advanced Study Princeton, USA
Professor Manolis Plionis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Professor Jonathan Heckman, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Professor Andreas Ringwald, DESY, Germany
Professor Markus Diehl, DESY, Germany
Professor Julian Heeck, University of Virginia, USA
Professor Kevin Costello, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Canada
Professor Elina Fuchs, DESY and Leibniz University Hannover, Germany
Professor Pavel Fileviez Perez, Case Western Reserve University, USA
Professor Michelangelo Mangano, CERN
Professor Ioannis Vergados, University of Ioannina Germany
Professor Thomas Mannel, University of Siegen, Germany
Professor George Sterman, Stony Brook University Director, C.N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics
Professor Lance Dixon, Stanford University, USA
Professor André de Gouvêa, Northwestern University, USA
Professor Mayda Velasco, Northwestern University, USA
Professor John Joseph Carrasco, Northwestern University, USA
Dr. Stefano De Angelis, CNRS, France
Professor Patrick Huber, Virginia Tech, USA
Professor Michael Graesser, Los Alamos Laboratory, USA
Professor Nikos Irges, NTU Athens, Greece
Professor Raman Sundrum, University of Maryland, USA
Professor Daniele Alves, Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA

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