In the UK the ESRC performs a similar role in allocating research grants as the Medical Research Council. ESRC has no role in medical research but it does fund research that relates to many disability issues, for that reason the following article may have relevance to PwME: https://www.researchprofessionalnew...-kwarteng-s-esrc-intervention-crosses-a-line/ Rejection of recommendation for council’s executive chair undermines all of UK research, says Will Hutton The news that business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has overruled the recommendation of a distinguished appointments board to appoint Jonathan Michie as the executive chair of the Economic and Social Research Council is profoundly disturbing. According to some sources, Kwarteng was worried about Michie’s previous political leanings, and whether they would have wrongly influenced the kind of research the ESRC funds—notwithstanding Michie’s long track record of academic impartiality. It is a decision with worrying implications not only for the integrity of the selection process, but for the ESRC and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and to a degree for the future of social science in Britain. The secretary of state is within his rights: the unwritten British constitution confers ministers more executive power than any other democracy—in effect royal prerogative powers now exercised by the monarch’s ministers. That makes it all the more important that ministers exercise their prerogative sparingly and judiciously, otherwise these powers become progressively delegitimised. more at link.
