The free-market pressure group argues that AHRC is squandering taxpayers’ money on “woke pseudoscience” and should be abolished.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance, the secretively funded lobby group, that once organised a day of action in Bath to oppose clean air measures, has found a fresh target. As fervently reported on the pages of the Daily Telegraph, the free-market pressure group argues that the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) is squandering taxpayers’ money on “woke pseudoscience” and should be abolished.
The claim rests on a new TaxPayers’ Alliance report, which asserts that UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and its councils are spending millions on projects allegedly “detached from the priorities of the British people.” Ministers, it says, should be prepared not only to scrap the AHRC but also to merge other research councils and refocus funding on areas with “clear national benefit.”
The examples offered are familiar to anyone who follows these regular culture-war skirmishes. Nearly £840,000 was awarded to Durham University for a project titled Black, Mad and Disabled, examining discrimination faced by Black, disabled and mentally unwell students.
The University of Sheffield received funding to study the impact of LGBT choirs on the mental health of trans people. While the University of Brighton secured support for research into homophobia in 1980s and 1990s Brighton, long regarded as one of Britain’s most progressive cities. And the University of Nottingham was funded to explore how the dominance of English in online trans communities may disadvantage those who cannot, or prefer not to, use the language.
Aren’t these merely examples of what arts and humanities research is meant to do – interrogate social realities, examine structures of inequality, and generate knowledge about lived experience.
The AHRC, as part of UKRI, has an explicit remit to strengthen equality, diversity and inclusion across the research landscape. That includes widening participation in arts and humanities scholarship, supporting researchers from underrepresented backgrounds, and embedding EDI principles in governance and funding decisions. Research into discrimination, language access, and minority wellbeing is not an eccentric add-on to that mission, it’s central to it.
The AHRC is not the only cultural body to find itself in the crosshairs. Arts Council England has become a regular target for accusations of “woke box-ticking.” In December, the Daily Mail reported claims that it was prioritising ideological compliance over artistic development, citing a review by Margaret Hodge. Baroness Hodge suggested that some organisations felt pressured to “tick all the ACE boxes” to secure funding and recommended a less prescriptive approach.
There is a legitimate debate to be had about how public money is distributed, how impact is measured, and how funding bodies balance artistic freedom with social objectives. But abolishing an entire research council on the grounds that some dislike its subject matter is surely not the answer. And, the fact that such arguments never fail to make it onto the pages of right-wing nationals, says it all.
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