A leading cosmologist is leaving the United Kingdom for Canada, in part, he says, because of the government's attitude towards funding physics research.

Neil Turok, a cosmologist at the University of Cambridge, says that recent funding cuts for fundamental physics in Britain “played a big role” in his decision to take up the post of executive director at the independent, non-profit Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. Turok says the cuts, and a desire for more applied research, are “the latest in a long history of the [government's] misunderstanding of the role of basic science”.

Turok will bring valuable research and leadership experience to the institute, says Perimeter's founder, Mike Lazaridis.