After expanding steadily for centuries, science is reaching its limits to growth. We can no longer afford the ever increasing cost of exploring ever wider research opportunities. In the competition for resources, science is becoming much more tightly organised. A radical, pervasive and permanent structural change is taking place. It already affects the whole research system, from everyday laboratory life to national budgets. The scientific enterprise cannot avoid fundamental change, but excessive managerial insistence on accountability, evaluation, ‘priority setting’, etc. can be very inhospitable to expertise, innovation, criticism and creativity. Can the research system be reshaped without losing many features that have made science so productive? This trenchant analysis of a deep-rooted historical process does not assume any technical knowledge of the natural sciences, their history, philosophy, sociology or politics. It is addressed to everybody who is concerned about the future of science and its place in society.