Decolonising dried plants among ‘woke waste’ of £27m of public cash

A TAXPAYER-FUNDED quango has spent £27 million on “woke” projects, including decolonising a collection of 120,000 dried plants, it has emerged.

UK Research and Innovation, a nondepartmental public body, has been accused of spending £27 million of public funds on “embarrassing, low grade” projects, including research that aims to decolonise collections of music and sculptures, and a project that will explore the representation of gender and LGBTQI+ people in castle histories.

An analysis of Ukri-funded projects between 2021-23 was commissioned by a senior Whitehall official who became concerned at the scale of taxpayer funding that was being funnelled into “wasteful woke” projects.

The analysis was then presented to the top official at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) by the former secretary of state Jacob Rees-mogg last month.

“JRM raised it with the permanent secretary, saying this is not a good use of taxpayer money when our budgets were under threat,” a source familiar with the discussion said. “He said we are spending millions on embarrassing, low grade projects and does it really meet any of our department’s ambitions”.

The source said that the BEIS permanent secretary was “genuinely understanding” about the issue, but was hesitant about political interference with taxpayer research grants.

One of the projects which received funding from UKRI is titled “Decolonising the Sloane Herbarium” and will involve researchers from Queen Mary University of London analysing the relationship between a collection of 120,000 dried plants and British imperialism.

UKRI was set up in 2018 by Greg Clark, the then business secretary.

A UKRI spokesman said: “UKRI carefully targets the investment of £8bn in taxpayers’ money each year in a diverse portfolio of activity that fuels the UK’S world-class research and innovation endeavour.

“Our remit spans all disciplines and all sectors, including complex social, economic, political, and cultural issues.

“Decisions on the projects we support are made via a rigorous peer review process by relevant independent experts from across academia and business.”