A new UK government Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has been announced by prime minister Rishi Sunak, with former higher education minister Michelle Donelan becoming its first secretary of state.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy – which previously oversaw science and the research budget – has been broken up.
As secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, Ms Donelan will have a seat at Cabinet, rather than science being a junior ministerial post as at present. This gives the science brief a far stronger position within government.
Meanwhile, George Freeman, who had been minister for science in BEIS, tweeted that he was “honoured to be the first minister of state”, the rank below secretary of state, in the new department.
