It rarely comes with a bang but with technical remeasuring of research density. It seems like the UK may now be spending 2.4 per cent of GDP on R&D.
As Josh Martin lays out in his superb article, ONS believe the UK survey of research activity has been significantly underestimating the density of research activity. This in turn means the UK, without doing anything new, may have hit its vaunted 2.4 per cent target.
The absolute key point is that this does not mean there is more research investment. Growing the size of the research economy relative to the economy overall means either investing more in research or maintaining investment relative to a decline in GDP. The latter might be taking place but there is no evidence of research investment of that scale to make the former likely.