CaSE Public Attitudes to R&D in a Shifting Voter Landscape 2026

This page details the results of a nationally representative survey of 4,173 UK adults as part of CaSE’s major project, R&D in a shifting voter landscape. The survey was designed to test at scale the findings from a desk review and exploratory qualitative research that were undertaken as part of that project.

The questionnaire drew on CaSE’s knowledge of key variables, allowing us to see how these shifted between groups within this study. These questions were inspired by previous CaSE research and informed by evidence from the desk review, but are adapted for this context, and so are not directly comparable to the results of other CaSE public opinion research.

The survey was conducted from 17-21 July, just as Andy Burnham was appointed the new Prime Minister.

Key findings

1. Vote intention remains fluid. Behind the stated first-preference, only 30% name one party they would vote for exclusively, whereas more than half (54%) would consider two or three parties.
2. Shifting voters tend to stay within a political bloc. Labour and the Conservatives have seen the greatest leakage from their 2024 General Election vote share, but largely within their respective blocs (Labour moving to Green; Conservative moving to Reform UK). There is also evidence of the 2024 Reform UK vote leaking to Restore Britain.
3. A handful of cultural outlooks gain consensus, but many issues divide voters. Broad agreement is found on statements such as “the world is at a dangerous point right now” (75%) and “Government should listen more to scientific evidence” (64%). By contrast, immigration is highly polarising, with 16% of Green voters but 90% of Restore Britain voters saying it has made the country worse.
4. Personal connections, public services and British science offer hope. There are pockets of hope among the public, with family and friendships, public services and British scientific and technological innovation as the top sources.
5. Awareness of R&D is low, but underlying support is positive. Only 16% feel they know a lot about the R&D being done in the UK. Despite this, 69% think it is important for Government to invest in R&D and 61% think it makes a significant economic contribution. Support for Government investment is seen across voter groups, ranging from 61%–65% (Restore Britain, Reform UK) to 78%–81% (Labour, Liberal Democrat).
6. Aspirations and priorities for R&D diverge on specifics. When asked what Government aspirations for R&D should be, the top choice is jobs for the new generation, framed around building homegrown scientists (47%), which comes well ahead of global collaboration (29%) or attracting scientists from around the world (25%). Green voters lean towards global collaboration while Reform UK and Restore Britain voters prioritise domestic jobs. Most voter groups would prioritise biology and medical technologies over other types, with defence and clean energy technologies splitting the public down party lines.

Vote intention and fluidity

Asked which party they would vote for if a general election was called tomorrow, 19% of respondents named the Labour Party, 17% Reform UK, 14% the Conservative Party, 13% the Green Party, 8% the Liberal Democrats and 5% Restore Britain, with 11% saying they would not vote.

However, when asked which parties they would consider voting for, and invited to rank up to three, the picture opened up considerably. Labour’s potential reach nearly doubled, to 34%. The Liberal Democrats and Restore Britain each more than tripled, to 26% and 16% respectively. Every party showed the same pattern to some degree. The gap between a party’s headline vote share and its potential reach into the electorate is large, underscoring the potential for further shifts in the voter landscape in the future.

Comparing current vote intention against recalled vote at the 2024 General Election confirms that every party has lost some share of its 2024 base to others. Retention is highest for the Greens (76% of 2024 Green voters would vote Green again, as their first preference) and Reform UK (71%).

It is lowest for Labour, where only 54% of 2024 Labour voters currently name Labour as their first choice, with the largest single leak (14%) going to the Greens. The Conservative vote has primarily leaked to Reform (19%), and Reform’s own vote shows early signs of leaking to Restore Britain (17%).

To explore voter loyalty, we can look at those who did not select any other parties. This was only a minority of 30%. Of the remaining 70%, around half (54%) named either two or three parties they would consider, while 11% said they would not vote and 6% prefer not to say. Loyalty varied by party, but within a relatively narrow range: Conservative and Green voters were the most likely to name only their own party (40% each), while Liberal Democrat and Restore Britain voters were the least (28% and 27%).

Looking beyond first preferences to include all the top three considerations sharpens the two-bloc picture identified in CaSE’s wider research through this project. Those who voted Reform in 2024 would predominantly now consider Reform, Restore Britain or the Conservatives (88%, 51% and 44% respectively); 2024 Conservative voters show the mirror pattern, considering Conservative, Reform and Restore Britain (84%, 38% and 20%). On the centre-left, the same clustering holds between Labour, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats.

However, the data does not show two fully sealed blocs. A meaningful minority of 2024 Conservative voters (19%) would consider the Liberal Democrats, and 11% would consider Labour; the 2024 Labour vote in particular shows real openness to every other main party.

Cultural outlooks, anxiety, ambitions and hope

The second part of the survey explored the outlooks and cultural lenses identified in the desk review, alongside anxiety, personal ambitions and reactions to a range of possible Government ambitions. These questions offer a snapshot of how each voter group sees the world.

Cultural outlooks

Twenty-five paired statements, framed as opposing positions about the world, were tested. Respondents could position themselves anywhere between them and responses were coded to either statement A, statement B or neutrality.

A small number of statements command broad consensus: the world is at a dangerous point right now (selected by 75%), the UK is deeply divided (68%), the country needs a recovery or rescue plan (65%), and the Government should listen more to scientific evidence when making decisions (64%).

Distrust is equally dominant: 70% said politicians don’t care about people like them, and 61% said they don’t trust the Government to tell the truth. Together, these form the shared cultural backdrop.

A second group of statements shows a population split down the middle. Respondents were split on whether the UK’s system of democracy “basically works” (40%) or needs fundamental change (39%). Close behind were:

• Whether their local area was doing well (35%) or badly (30%), with around the same proportion of neutral responses (35%).
• Immigration has improved the country or made it worse (38% vs 45%).
• Hope versus pessimism for Britain’s future (41% vs 37%).
• Globalisation’s upsides versus downsides (37% vs 35%).
• Views on tax and spending, with 39% favouring lower taxes and less spending and 34% the reverse.

Some statements gained neither consensus nor an even split. Asked whether they agreed with the idea of “Broken Britain”, half (50%) said they did, but 23% said they did not. Similarly, around half said economic growth should be the top priority to make things better with the country (54% compared with 22% who said it shouldn’t), and that they were proud of their local area (49%, compared with 23% who said they were not).

There was a prevailing view that, overall, technology has had a positive impact on our quality of life: 58% take this view compared with 19% who think the impact has been negative. However, this does not extend to AI, where opinion flips to negative: 48% say AI is on balance negative, compared with 27% positive.

Analysis by voter group confirmed that the divisive statements cleave largely along party lines, while several other items hold up as genuine consensus points.

Some of the most significant differences were:

• Agreement with the sentiment of “Broken Britain” ranged from just 31% among Labour voters (the only group where it is a minority view) to 86% among Restore Britain voters. The sense that the UK is badly in need of a recovery plan follows an almost identical gradient (42% to 90%).
• Immigration is the single most polarising item tested: just 16% of Green voters said it has, on balance, made the country worse, compared with 90% of Restore Britain voters and 86% of Reform voters. This 74-point spread is the largest of the statements tested.

In contrast, voters from all parties tended to agree that “the world is at a very dangerous point right now”, ranging from 66% (those who would not vote) to 89% (Reform).

For the R&D sector, it is notable that the statement that “the Government should listen more to scientific evidence when making decisions” was one of the least partisan ideas tested.

Anxiety

Anxiety was a strong theme in the qualitative research, and the survey asked how anxious respondents felt about a range of personal and societal issues. Responses were gathered on a five-point scale; in this section, ‘extremely’ and ‘very’ anxious are grouped as respondents having high anxiety.

Respondents were consistently more anxious about things beyond their immediate control, rather than about their personal circumstances. More than half (58%) expressed high anxiety about the direction the world is heading in, the highest of any item tested. Some 49% reported feeling high anxiety about the direction of the country and 44% for their children’s life chances – in contrast with just 29% for their own financial situation and 21% for their own job security.

Anxiety about the direction of the country was sharply political. Some 75% of Restore Britain voters and 69% of Reform voters reported high anxiety, against 30% of Labour voters; a 45-point spread. Anxiety about the direction of the world was comparatively uniform, ranging from 48% (would not vote) to 66% (Green); an 18-point spread.

Notably, both Green and Restore Britain voters reported markedly higher anxiety about their own financial situation (43% and 36% respectively) compared with other voter groups, with Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrat voters all sitting at 23-24%.

Personal ambitions

Asked to select their main ambitions or priorities in life from a list of 19 options, the majority chose the personal, modest and security-driven over the ambitious or status-driven.

Financial security (64%) and health and wellbeing (60%) were far ahead of everything else, followed by work-life balance (31%), friendships (30%) and travel (29%).

Analysis by vote intention reveals divergences. Crime and safety was named by 44% of Reform voters and 39% of Restore Britain voters, compared with 13% of Green voters. Work-life balance runs the other way (42% of Green voters compared with 23% of Conservative voters). However, elsewhere there is uniformity; financial security and health and wellbeing were the top two priorities for all voter groups.

Respondents were asked whether the ambitions they selected were getting easier or harder to achieve. For anything connected to housing or long-term financial planning, the clear answer was that it feels much harder. Some 75% of those who named housing and home ownership as an ambition said it was getting harder (of which 52% said “much harder”), followed closely by retirement readiness (70% harder) and financial security (70% harder).

Government ambitions

Beyond personal ambitions, the survey explored attitudes towards a range of broad political ambitions or ‘directions’ for the nation that a UK Government might choose to promote. Eighteen ambitions were tested to reflect a range of platforms, solutions or directions that have been relevant to UK political discussions in recent years. Respondents were asked how much they agreed with the direction on an 8-point scale; agreement is reported below as the top two points on this scale (‘completely’ or ‘mostly’ agree).

Three of these Government ambitions each drew agreement from almost two-thirds of people: national self-sufficiency (64%), protecting rural spaces from overdevelopment (64%), and eldercare support (64%). Close behind were focusing close to home before problems abroad (61%) and scientific ingenuity, which was framed as building on “Britain’s proud scientific and engineering past” (59%). This was followed by rewarding hard work through welfare reform (58%) and securing the border (54%).

In the middle was a group ranging from institutional change through regional levelling-up, wealth redistribution and equal opportunities. They all gained between 48% and 56% agreement. The least broadly popular directions were a new wave of home building (44%), global cooperation and leadership (44%), a small state and lower taxes (43%), and a green economy (43%).

Analysis by voting intention once again shows sharp differences. Securing the border was the most polarising: 90% of Restore Britain voters agreed compared with 23% of Green voters, a 67-point spread. A green economy runs almost as wide in the opposite direction (74% Green vs 21% Reform and Restore Britain).

Scientific ingenuity stands out as the exception. Among voters (as opposed to those who would not vote), agreement ranged from 59% (Reform) to 70% (Liberal Democrat) – the narrowest of the ambitions tested.

Pockets of hope

Respondents were asked where they find “pockets of hope”, allowing them to select up to five of the ten options provided. Family and friendships came first (selected by 51%), followed by the UK’s public services and “British scientific and technological innovation” (both 37%). The UK’s cultural and creative industries were also cited frequently (31%). By contrast, fewer found cause for optimism in “a specific political movement or party” or “the country’s institutions” (both 14%). A sizeable minority (17%) said they have no hope or optimism at all.

Assessed by voter group, hope in British science and technology has broad appeal, although with some differences. Liberal Democrat voters were the most likely to name it as a source of hope (52%), followed by Conservative and Labour voters (44% each), then Reform (37%, in line with the UK average).

Notably further away are Green voters (30%) and Restore Britain voters (29%). The proportion who said they don’t have any hope was notably high among Reform (24%), Restore Britain (22%) and those who wouldn’t vote (31%).

Awareness, attitudes, aspirations and priorities for R&D

Awareness of and attitudes to R&D

When asked if they had heard the phrase “Research and Development”, almost two in three (64%) said they had. This varied modestly by vote intention, being highest among Liberal Democrat (76%) and Labour (72%) voters and lowest among Restore Britain (59%) and Reform (62%).

After this question was posed, respondents were shown a definition of R&D which is used in all CaSE public opinion surveys and is based on the Frascati definition (it can be found in full at the top of this page).

The next set of questions were posed as paired statements, with a slider that allowed respondents to position themselves at any point between them. Responses were then coded to either three points (statement A, statement B, or neutrality) or, to explore the responses in more granularity, seven points (1-3, neutral (4), 5-7).

Looking first at the simple, three-point scale. For self-reported knowledge of R&D in the UK, just 16% said they feel they know a lot about the R&D being done in the UK, compared with 63% who felt they didn’t. There was almost no difference between voter groups, ranging from 60% to 72%, regardless of their likelihood of encountering the term in the first place.

Despite low levels of knowledge, underlying support for R&D was positive on every dimension tested:

• Close to seven in ten (69%) said it is important for the UK Government to invest in R&D (just 10% disagree).
• Close to three in five said that R&D makes a significant contribution to the country’s economy (61%) and that investing in R&D now, rather than waiting for the economy to improve first, is the right approach (60%).
• More than half (55%) considered R&D a genuine national strength.

Looking at the scale in more granularity, it is notable that opinion clusters heavily in the middle of the scale (positions 2-6) rather than at the extremes. This suggests that relatively few people hold emphatic pro- or anti-R&D positions, and are more likely to sit somewhere in a broadly but not strongly supportive middle ground.

Analysis by vote intention shows that even among the two groups least persuaded of R&D’s importance, there is majority support for Government investment in R&D. These are voters for Reform (65%) and Restore Britain (61%). This is behind Labour (78%) and Liberal Democrat (81%) voters.

A majority of all groups said that R&D makes a significant contribution to the economy, except Restore Britain (46%) and those who would not vote (42%); the same picture is seen when asked if R&D is a national strength, where a majority said it was, except Restore Britain (43%) and those who would not vote (40%). In both cases, this was mostly driven by a larger proportion of neutral responses rather than outright disagreement.

When asked about when to invest in R&D, a majority of most voter groups said it is important to invest now to grow the economy, peaking among Labour and Liberal Democrat (both 72%), but dropping to 52% for Reform and 49% Restore Britain. This emphasises the sense of immediate priorities and desire for change among Reform UK voters, as seen in the other phases of research.

Aspirations and priorities for R&D

The next question asked respondents what the main aspirations of any UK Government should be for the future of British science and R&D, allowing them to select up to three of eight options. These were framed by a short statement followed by an explanation of the goal or how it might be achieved.

The top choice – selected by 47% – was “Jobs for the new generation: To build up a new generation of homegrown scientists through massive investment in state schools and universities”. This was followed by “Talent retention: To offer high salaries and world-class facilities so we stop the best British scientists being poached by the US or Europe” (38%) and “Domestic job prioritisation: To encourage UK research labs and tech firms to hire qualified British science graduates ahead of international applicants” (37%).

Other themes trailed behind: global collaboration (29%), global excellence (28%), attracting the best scientists from around the world (25%) and commercialisation (21%). Few respondents (11%) selected the response stating “None of these: the Government should not be prioritising or funding scientific research over other immediate national needs”.

When looking at voter groups, most think R&D should be supported in some way – although a notable 24% of those who would not vote felt that the Government shouldn’t prioritise research. However, there are differences in preferred approach. Green voters were more likely to select in their top three global collaboration (41%, the highest of any group) and jobs for the new generation (60%, also the highest).

Reform and Restore Britain voters, by contrast, were far more likely to prioritise domestic job protection (47% and 53% respectively) than either global collaboration (15% for both) or attracting international talent (24% and 15%).

The next question asked respondents where they would prioritise investment for science, technology and innovation, given that governments don’t have unlimited budgets. The options were informed by the eight sectors of the Starmer Government’s 2025 Modern Industrial Strategy, ranging from the creative industries and financial services to the life sciences and advanced manufacturing. For the questionnaire, each was translated into a more tangible form with examples, and respondents were able to select up to three as priorities for investment.

At the top of the list were biology and medical technologies (57%), ahead of defence and security technologies (48%) and clean energy technologies (44%). All the other technologies tested – finance, manufacturing, digital and AI, business services, and creative and media – sit well behind, each selected by fewer than a quarter of respondents.

Biology and medical technologies gain the most consensus across voter groups, with a narrow range of support from 51% to 68% across voter groups.

By contrast, some technologies show sharp divides:

• Defence and security technologies are selected by 65% Conservative and 64% Reform voters, compared with just 27% Green.
• Clean energy technologies are selected by 72% Green and 60% Liberal Democrat voters, compared with 24% Reform and 23% Restore Britain.