AbstractThis article presents an overview of trends in UK government expenditure on academic and related research compared to five other nations, for the period 1975–87. Total spending grew in real terms by 15% in the UK for the seven years to 1987, but as a percentage of GDP it remained around 20% lower than the average for comparable European countries. This suggests that British researchers were less well funded by around US$500 million in 1987, the apparent difference being particularly large in physical and life sciences.Among other findings, UK government policy to achieve greater budgetary flexibility, by shifting the emphasis from institutional core-funding to research council grants and programmes, is shown to reflect a general trend in countries traditionally financing universities through a dual-support system.