4UKRI influence on the balance of R&D spending
78.In this Chapter we address the issue of balance in R&D spending across the different dimensions we identified through this inquiry. Our focus is on the influence that UKRI can exert, and the opportunities created to re-assess existing balances that may be the product of previous political decisions or the result of the previous R&D ecosystem. In turn we address the balance between: the two elements of the dual support system; regional spending; ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ research; research and innovation; different research disciplines; capital and current spending; and domestic and overseas policy goals.
UKRI
79.The terms of reference for our inquiry requested evidence regarding the rationale for deciding on the balance of public R&D over a range of dimensions, However, whilst much of the evidence we received was useful for illuminating the inherent trade-offs, there was often very little to suggest the optimum level. As the innovation foundation Nesta stated “there are no easy answers to the question of finding the ‘right’ balance of funding.”118 This was reflected in the response of Professor Sir Mark Walport, Chief Executive of UKRI, regarding the issue of investigator-driven research; “It is slightly like asking, ‘How long is a piece of string?’ There is no simple right answer to what the balance should be.”119 The appropriate balance will depend on the goals and objectives of research policy. As outlined in Chapter 3, the complexity and uncertainty of the research system may mean that the optimal balance is unknowable.
80.Decisions about what balances to strike are essentially political. The current balance and concentration of funding is the result of previous policy choices, and this should be explicitly recognised. But the various balances discussed in this Report should take account of current goals and needs rather than reflecting those of past decades.
81.Finding the correct balance in each area may be impossible, but it is the policy mix needed to best support R&D that is important rather than just the performance of individual policies. Although optimal balance might not be identifiable, in many cases where evidence recommended a need for increased funding, such increases might be more feasible and palatable in an environment with an increasing spending envelope as they will not necessitate reallocation of funding from elsewhere.
The dual support system
82.The “dual support” system is widely regarded to be a key feature of UK research funding. Through this combined approach, research councils (RCs) offer competitive project-based funding, whilst Quality-Related (QR) block funding based on quality assessment through the Research Excellence Framework (REF), gives greater flexibility for use and longer (seven year) periods of assured funding. As the QR funding is un-hypothecated, universities are free to direct it as they wish rather than specifically to the research area for which its ‘excellence’ is awarded, thus allowing cross-subsidisation in to other research areas.
83.The balance of these elements has changed over time, with increasing research council funding from 2012 not met with increased QR funding. QR funding saw a 13% fall in its value in real terms from 2010–11 to 2017–18.120 Until 2015–16, total QR funding was higher than research council grant funding to higher education institutions, but is now slightly lower.121
84.Most university submissions, including the UCL and Coventry University submissions, supported a continuation of QR funding, and many had concerns about the level of QR given its relative reduction in recent years.122 Universities UK stated that “in recent years, QR funding in England has remained at a flat level. Given the importance of such funding to the UK research base, the UK Government should raise levels of investment in QR while considering the impact on devolved nations.”123 Professor Reid of UCL agreed with this sentiment whilst extolling the benefits of QR, including increased agility, stable careers for researchers, and ability to meet the full economic costs of project funding.124
85.Gordon McKenzie (CEO of GuildHE, a representative body for UK higher education) stated that QR was more equitable from the perspective of smaller institutions and research environments, as many small institutions received no research council funding at all.125 But the seven-year REF cycle also created limitations and “may need to be tweaked, because smaller research environments grow quickly from a relatively low base”. Mr McKenzie told us that it would be beneficial to find a way to feed money in to continue building capacity in these areas in between the REF cycles.126 The GuildHE submission suggested the following process:
a year on year uplift of QR, via a ‘gearing’ formula providing at maximum 10% increase in funding, for institutions with relatively low QR allocations - say, below £200,000. This would be expressly to support emerging research environments to establish infrastructure and capacity to keep pace with mandates and enable them to more effectively enter competitive schemes.
[ … ] such investment would need to be monitored to ensure the additional funds are used for expressed purposes. We suggest institutions provide strategies for the additional investments, and also provide monitoring data at reasonable intervals. This has a precedent - allocations for GCRF [Grand Challenge Research Fund] within QR is handled in a similar way.127
86.The suggestion of further assessment for QR was countered by Professor Reid of UCL though, who suggested that “we should recognise the stability of the long-run REF cycle combined with more dynamic grant awards”.128
87.None of the evidence specified what the balance between QR and project funding should be. Professor Reid said he could not point to “evidence that will determine the balance of project funding and QR funding”.129 Professor Sir Mark Walport agreed that understanding the balance between the two elements was work in progress.130
88.Following our evidence sessions, in an announcement on 2 July 2019, Research England published budgets for university research for the year 2019–20. This included an additional investment of £91 million, of which £45 million was to be allocated to mainstream QR funding, an increase from £1,050 million in 2018–19 to £1,095 million in 2019–20.131 The former Minister commented on the announcement that:
for the first time since 2010, we have a significant uplift in QR funding for universities [… which] marks an important recognition of university research and the need to invest more in flexible, curiosity-driven research that has tremendous benefits to developing our international standing as a research powerhouse.132
89.We recognise that the dual funding system of block grants and project-based research council funding has been crucial to the success of UK universities, and that maintaining this system with ‘appropriate balance’ will be a key function of UKRI. There may be no optimal balance, but trying to reach an appropriate balance in the light of current policy goals is a key political choice and should be made in a transparent and accountable fashion. UKRI should continually monitor the appropriateness of balances struck in the operation of the dual support system and publish the advice given to the Government, alongside its analysis and commentary, at regular intervals.
90.The flat profile of QR funding in recent years suggests it has not been prioritised in funding decisions. The announcement of a £45 million increase in mainstream QR funding by Research England in July 2019 indicates that there may be a change in this focus, and a recognition of the benefits of un-hypothecated budgets which allow universities to maintain agility and develop their own areas of expertise. We recommend that focus on QR funding is maintained in future considerations, and that QR should continue to be prioritised to address previous real-terms reductions in funding.
91.UKRI should review the quality-related (QR) formula which has been responsible for increasing concentration of regional spending, paying attention to the formula used in Scotland which has been less geared towards driving concentration.
92.Whilst QR funding provides a stability of funding over the course of the seven-year REF cycle, we also recognise that these timeframes create barriers for smaller but potentially fast-growing institutions or areas of excellence who receive lower QR allocations. We recommend that in UKRI’s ongoing evaluation work it reviews whether additional support for these institutions should be provided, possibly through specific gearing of investment across the REF period, through additional review periods for smaller bodies, or through separate QR stream for smaller and specialist institutions.
Regional concentration of research
93.We received a great deal of analysis regarding the concentration of research funding. This clearly supported an understanding of the ‘golden triangle’ of concentration of funding in universities in London, Cambridge and Oxford. Eurostat data shows that 41% of Government-supported research was concentrated in these three regions (Inner West London, Oxford, and Cambridge).133 Royal Society analysis, based on ONS data, shows that London, the South East and the East of England accounted for 42% of UK R&D funding.134
94.We understand that it is possible to paint a different picture, as normalising for regional population, gross value added, university concentration, and the split between public and private spending can all give a different interpretation of concentration and research funding prioritisation.135 However, this argument was more forcefully made by institutions that had to date benefited from previous regional concentration; the Russell Group concluded that “whilst there are clear differences between the regions, the expenditure figures alone do not give us a full overview of what is a much more complex picture”.136 UCL agreed that any assessment of geographic distribution required the scale and characteristics of the region to be taken in to account and that there was no “uniquely authoritative” way of describing this distribution.137
95.Whilst the pattern can be analysed in different ways it seems clear that there is a concentration of research in the ‘golden triangle’, largely driven by the ‘Excellence Principle’ of a funding allocation based on assessed research excellence, further accentuating any natural ‘Matthew Effect’—essentially that as any cluster grows it becomes more likely to be successful in securing funding, leading to further growth.138 Professors Wilsdon and Jones of the University of Sheffield argued that any ‘place-blind’ funding would eventually lead to this effect, but that this meant ‘place-blind’ was not the same as ‘place-neutral’,139 thus again reflecting a deliberate political policy choice in terms of regional concentration.
96.This regional agglomeration has been long-recognised, with a predecessor Committee of ours noting the difficulty created by the Excellence Principle and the funding concentration in the golden triangle:
On the face of it, the Excellence Principle is a good thing because it keeps science competitive and sends the money where it is most likely to produce the best results. However, there is a clash with another very important concept. The Government views science and innovation as key factors in economic development. This is a long-standing position that has been reaffirmed many times since the current economic crisis started. When one combines the view that science and engineering are important for the economic health of a region, on the one hand, with Government’s responsibility for the economic health of the region, on the other, one logically arrives at a policy whereby the Government makes strategic decisions regarding the economic health of regions by influencing where research money is spent.140
97.Both Professor Sir Mark Walport of UKRI and the then Minister recognised these tensions between the rewards for excellence increasing regional redistribution, but stressed that the excellence of institutions should not be diminished.141 They raised several points regarding the possible policy response. The then Minister highlighted the current policies aimed at addressing regional imbalance, including the Strength in Places Fund, the Northern Powerhouse strategies for future investment, and a longer-term strategy of investing in people, ensuring that there was a supply chain behind larger infrastructure projects.142 Professor Sir Mark Walport echoed this last point in his analysis of what was required to create new clusters of excellence:143
If you look at the four features of a cluster, first and foremost it is about leadership. It is very difficult to develop clusters if there are not strong leaders. The second is an area of business strength; thirdly, it is a combination typically of universities that can provide the range of skills needed; and, fourthly, it is local support. That is what we are looking for in the strength in places fund. If we are going to grow the economy in other parts, that is what we have to be looking for.144
98.The then Minister was clear that he did not want the Strength in Places Fund (SIPF) to be viewed as the only “magic-bullet” solution to the regional issue, and that it needed to sit within other policies such as the Higher Education Innovation Fund and the progression of the Industrial Strategy.145 Encouragingly the responses we received were supportive of the SIPF.146 For example, the Academy of Medical Sciences called it “a positive step towards the goal” of increased investment in research and innovation across the regions. However, there were also suggestions that a larger fund would be more effective.147 Professor Wilsdon of the University of Sheffield, for example, suggested that to tackle the balance issue at a regional level it would need to be “larger by an order of magnitude to make a significant difference”:148
The Strength in Places Fund is very welcome. It is not sufficient to tackle the scale of the regional imbalances in R&D spending [ … ] this is a debate that needs to be approached with nuance and subtlety. It is not simply a matter of “out of the golden triangle good, inside bad.” However, there are observable trends towards greater concentration over the last 20 years. They are very clearly visible in the data. There are also all of the dynamics we have already touched on within the system that will further concentrate R&D spending in areas that are already successful … . [E]xcellence breeding excellence. It is also other Matthew effects… in the funding systems. It is very hard to disentangle the positives from the negatives of all of that.149
99.Evaluation of the SIPF is likely to prove difficult. We have already identified some of the issues regarding the measurement of regional concentration of funding (paragraph 94) that mean at an input level there may conflicting considerations. The diversity of goals that might be addressed by regional R&D and innovation activity further complicates matters, and in terms of outcomes, measuring the influence of any policy on local economic growth is innately complex.150
100.Place is a key focus within both the Industrial Strategy and the UKRI strategic prospectus and development plan. In the context of the regional concentration of research funding, the aim should be to build further research excellence outside of its existing predominance in the South East of England. We strongly agree that additional regional funding should not be to the detriment of this ‘golden triangle’, and excellence in this area should continue to be rewarded, recognising that this is a tide that lifts all boats in terms of international recognition of the UK as a place of quality research. However, in order to contribute to the 2.4% R&D target, regional strengths will need to be harnessed and cultivated.
101.For wider regional growth to succeed, expertise and infrastructure beyond universities will be required, as envisaged in the wider Industrial Strategy. For UKRI, the main lever with which to stimulate regional excellence is through the Strength in Places Fund (SIPF). The SIPF is still in its infancy, but its rationale and its goals remain somewhat opaque and it is too modest to drive any significant rebalancing of investment given the strength of existing drivers of increasing regional concentration in funding. Whilst the fund is still in its infancy, it appears to be a more innovation-orientated approach that appears too small to drive a significant re-balancing of investment given the current level of regional concentration in funding.
102.We recommend that UKRI and BEIS substantially increase the size of the Strength in Places Fund given it appears to be the primary lever through which it is attempting to influence the regional concentration of funding and create new centres of excellence beyond the golden triangle. It should further clarify the rationale and expectations of this expanded programme. This should include the intended evaluation approach and key metrics for assessing the level of regional concentration of funding and the outcomes of this funding.
Balance between ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ research
103.Our call for evidence asked respondents to explain the rationale for allocating funding between the ‘pure’151 and ‘applied’152 elements of research. Evidence received suggested that such definitions were contentious, with BEIS suggesting that this is “an artificial construct with a blurred boundary”.153 Partly reflecting this view, evidence submitted to the inquiry also used a range of different terminology for both ‘pure’154 and ‘applied’155 research. The OECD Frascati manual definitions do refer to ‘basic research’ ‘applied research’ and ‘experimental development’, and these categories are widely used for statistical purposes.156 For the purposes of our inquiry we have continued to use ‘pure’ research, but consider this synonymous with ‘basic’ research.
104.Much of the evidence received suggested that support for basic research enabled future applications which cannot be envisaged. The Royal Society of Chemistry stated:
Support for fundamental, curiosity-driven research must be sustained, alongside challenge-based and applied research. Evidence shows that supporting fundamental, curiosity-driven research results in long-term impacts that bring benefits beyond pushing the frontiers of science–delivering economic growth and solutions to challenges that the world faces with regards to health, energy and environmental sustainability.157
105.Much of the evidence submitted to our inquiry supported the idea of ‘pipeline’ of discovery, for which well-funded basic research is required.158 However, we also appreciate that most researchers would understandably prefer to be given complete freedom and open-ended funding for their work. This pipeline description is also contested by academic literature such as the research of Salter and Martin,159 which suggested that the benefits of basic research funding was to increase the stock of human knowledge and support a creative environment that attracted the top researchers. The new knowledge, equipment and methods developed are available to applied and industrial researchers and provide the main environment in which researchers were trained. Research results might also sometimes inspire applied research or spin outs, but this was probably the least frequent or important impact. There are also many historic examples of fundamental insights achieved from applied (problem-oriented) research, such as Pasteur’s germ theory.160
106.This would not necessarily imply that there is a need to prioritise basic (investigator-driven) research. BEIS suggested that, if there were an optimum balance, “it might exist where the UK is at the forefront of producing new ideas and has the capability to translate these into social and economic benefit to the UK.”161 The Royal Society of Biology suggested that “the interdependence of pure and applied research is such that they complement each other and this is just one of the reasons to safeguard a healthy balance of funding for both”,162 whilst UKRI stated its position that “fundamental and applied research, and innovation are often mutually reinforcing element’s of UKRI’s portfolio. We aim to recognise their complementarity and break down barriers between them.”163
107.We understand that the distinction between pure and applied research is a contested definition and as such it does not appear to be a dimension of balance on which funding decisions can usefully be made, whilst also understanding the importance of maintaining funding for pure research as a foundation of other benefits and dimensions of balance.
Balance between research and innovation
108.The contested distinction between ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ research noted above somewhat extends to that between research and innovation, with much of the latter being indistinguishable from highly applied research and what the OECD Frascati Manual defines as ‘experimental development’. Though historically the UK has been active in taxpayer support for technological development, since the 1980s the decision of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to end most Government support for so-called ‘near market’ research, the UK has had an internationally unusual public research system focused on the ‘basic’ research funding through the dual support system.164
109.The UK has generally had a ratio of around 10:1 between science funding and innovation funding,165 compared to ratios of “up to 1:1” in other competitor nations.166 This ratio is largely reflected in the relative budget of Innovate UK compared to the other research councils. Evidence from the Catapult Network and AIRTO Ltd suggested that the ratio would have narrowed somewhat since the establishment of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. The Catapult Network explained:
We would not suggest that there should be an even balance, nor would we advocate moving the funding away from research but, at a time when private sector confidence to invest is under pressure, we see a compelling case for directing increases in public funding to incentivise activity at higher [Technology-Readiness Levels].167
However, the submission stated that it was “not making a case for further increases to Catapult core grant funding at this time”, instead it was advocating increases in measures to support access to finance such as innovation loans, Innovate UK’s Investment Accelerator and initiatives to improve the availability of patient capital.168
110.Addressing this issue of balance, Professor Sir Mark Walport stated that “historically, the balance was very strongly towards discovery, with very little money spent on the innovation side of the fence. Indeed, Innovate UK is only 12 years old this year. It is a relatively new agency.”169 The then Minister said that when it:
comes to innovation spending, I think we still have significantly more to do [ … ] The question is whether we continue the traditional pattern of what we have done, which is to invent and realise significant milestones in science and innovation in technologies and let some other country take the commercial opportunities.170
111.Since the 1980s the UK has had a very different profile of scientific research spending versus technological development and innovation spending to other developed countries. As a result the public sector science base, and the dual support system, have been expected to do almost all the heavy lifting of driving and supporting innovation, together with an emphasis on commercialisation of academic science. This generic science-based innovation policy may explain the paradox that the research focused UK system has felt progressively more ‘applied’ and directed to many of the researchers working within it.
112.Since the global financial crisis successive Governments have made tentative steps back towards more active support for technological development, with milestones including the establishment of Innovate UK and the Catapult Network. The Industrial Strategy and the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund are the latest milestones in this direction of travel. Funding for the development of new technologies is not the only way Governments support innovation, but is an important part of any Industrial Strategy. Continued growth in technological development and innovation funding should also allow a rethinking of the ‘innovation focus’ of the ‘basic’ public sector science base.
Balance between research disciplines
113.The balance between research disciplines was widely viewed through the balance of funding allocation between research councils. QR funding allocated by universities themselves can alter this balance, but UKRI does not have discretion over these decisions. However, cross-cutting funds administered by UKRI such as the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund and the Strength in Places Fund, and multi-disciplinary collaborations, can also influence the balance.
114.As with regional concentration of research spending it seemed that disciplines or specific areas of research could become self-reinforcing areas of spending. Research by Professors James Wilsdon and Richard Jones highlighted this effect in The Biomedical Bubble, suggesting that previous success in the area had created ongoing spending commitments that could not be rationalised through cost-benefit analysis.171 At a more macro level, Sir Paul Nurse pointed to the Medical Research Council and Natural Environment Research Council, suggesting that their proportion of funding had been largely unchanged in nearly fifty years: “that tells us that history is determining what is happening. That cannot be right”,172 a view supported by Professor Wilsdon.173 Sir Paul Nurse’s suggestion was that as funding was increased there should be some cross-research council bidding.174 This partly echoed the suggestions contained in his review of research councils, one of the key recommendations of which was:
establishing mechanisms to deal with cross-cutting issues such as the support of multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary research, grand challenges and the redistribution of resource between Research Councils in response to new developments, advances and priorities in the research endeavour.175
115.The Strategic Priorities Fund (SPF) built on the Sir Paul Nurse vision of a “common fund” to address these issues, an approach that was broadly welcomed in evidence, including by the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Academy of Social Sciences,176 although this was largely in theory as further details were awaited.177 However, Professor Dame Athene Donald, Chair of the Interdisciplinary Advisory Panel for REF2021, raised significant concerns over the fund, suggesting that the process for allocating funding had been:
(a) driven by individual research councils, which raises all the pre-UKRI concerns about work that straddles boundaries and accompanying concerns about how assessment will be done;
b) is unlikely to provide a means by which genuinely exciting cross-cutting research gets promoted and fairly assessed;
c) carried out with a total lack of transparency raising the spectre that one of the key roles that UKRI might play is being lost without a genuine discussion of the funding balance ever being initiated.178
116.Wave 1 of the SPF has subsequently been announced by UKRI and detailed in the delivery plan, with UKRI committing to deliver the SPF programmes announced to date, including running research calls and innovation competitions open to researchers and business across the UK.179 The updated documentation does not clearly address the concerns raised by Dame Athene. Whilst UKRI was very supportive of the fund during our evidence session, the commitments to being “agile and responsive to exciting new opportunities” and examples of funding such as modern anti-slavery research at the Arts and Humanities Research Council failed to address these criticisms.180
117.The balance across research disciplines should be easier to monitor and adjust under UKRI. Historic patterns clearly should not be maintained for their own sake. However, we are concerned that the Strategic Priorities Fund (SPF) may have not been established in a way that effectively addresses this issue. We recommend that UKRI review the SPF and ensure that individual research councils are not exerting excessive influence on what is intended to be a cross-council, multi-disciplinary focus.
118.Future consideration of the balance between disciplines must include robust evaluation of research areas within each discipline. We find the case regarding entrenched concentration of research analysed in The Biomedical Bubble compelling. UKRI analysis should widen this approach and conduct relevant cost-benefit analysis of larger research areas within different disciplines to establish whether R&D spending remains productive.
Balance between capital and current funding
119.Evidence submitted to the inquiry specifically citing the level of capital expenditure was relatively limited. A previous review of capital funding by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE, the precursor to Research England), showed that funding for capital expenditure had reduced by nearly 70% between 2005–06 and 2013–14, from £1.2 billion to £340 million.181 Evidence from the Institute for Cancer Research (ICR) noted that capital funding had remained at a similar level since 2013–14, representing a real-terms decrease.182 The ICR also noted that other sources of research funding had grown at a faster rate than core funding for infrastructure, and that given that project grants did not cover the overheads of research, there was not enough investment in the physical infrastructure of higher education institutions, including research equipment, to keep pace with project funding.183 This is likely to be reflected in the concerns regarding the Full Economic Costs (FEC) of research that were also highlighted in our evidence sessions.184
120.The Earlham Institute suggested there was a need for better coordination between capital and resource funding awards:
At times, capital funding is awarded for the purchase of new equipment, such as DNA synthesisers and high-performance computing equipment, but the budget for the required software, training, staff and electricity to run the equipment have to be paid from revenue awards that are fixed across budget cycles. The situation is not practical or efficient, impairs research impact and even causes delays to research.185
121.This represented what the Association of Innovation, Research and Technology Organisations (AIRTO Ltd) referred to as the ‘batteries not included’ scenario investment:186 facilities or major items of research equipment were made without ongoing resource spending commitments in place. Ongoing costs are not guaranteed but expected to be covered be the normal functioning of the dual support system, i.e. through QR and competitively won grant funding. This represented a “very ineffective use of public funding”.187
122.UKRI was commissioned by BEIS in January 2018 to develop the first national research and innovation infrastructure roadmap,188 which sought to detail existing UK infrastructure, future needs, and resulting investment priorities. The most recent Progress Report was published in March 2019, identifying emerging themes and areas of potential capability that could be addressed by new infrastructures (identified through consultation with research and innovation communities).189 This is an important exercise which should be beneficial in setting out new infrastructure plans over the next 10 years. The roadmap was supported by Professor Dowling of the Royal Academy of Engineers, Professor Hall of the Earlham Institute and Dr Griffiths of the Institute for Cancer Research, although Professor Hall noted “it is being put together very quickly, which is worrying, in a way.”190 It appears likely that new UKRI funding, such as the Strength In Places Fund and the Strategic Priorities Fund, will also put in place new infrastructure, which may exacerbate issues regarding future resource funding. However, it is not obvious from the infrastructure roadmap that the relationship between capital funding and resource spending is being addressed.
123.We welcome the opportunity to redress reductions in capital investment for research. The UKRI roadmap represents an opportunity to consider where investment can be focused and most effective in contributing to ongoing research excellence and to the wider goals of the 2.4% target. In order for UKRI to take ownership of the ‘batteries not included’ issue, we recommend that decisions for investment include consideration of the coordination of capital and revenue funding and the long-term requirements of new and existing investments. Major capital investment project plans should explicitly state assumptions regarding future QR or research council funding that may be required to staff or run them.
Balance between domestic and overseas policy goals
124.Through the establishment of the UKRI-administered Global Challenges Research Fund and the Newton Fund (both described in the previous Chapter), UKRI claims to demonstrate the belief in the “importance of research and innovation to address global challenges and promote global economic development”.191
125.Organisations such as the Royal Academy of Engineering expressed support for this stance, agreeing with the importance of the UK taking the lead in addressing global challenges such as access to clean water.192 Universities UK also suggested that they represented “long-term investments, the benefits of which will not be realised in the short-term. It is therefore important that such schemes are maintained.”193
126.However, the Russell Group suggested that funding sources tied to Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) had a similar effect to those of the National Productivity and Investment Fund, ring-fencing too much of the funding available to universities.194 They suggested that the proportion of funding related to these schemes increased from 10% in 2017–18 to 19% in 2019–20. Excluding these funds, the core budget of five of the nine research councils would decline.195 They also suggested that this would have an impact on the councils’ ability to fund core activities, including responsive mode funding and post graduate research training.196
127.There are concerns that ring-fencing of funds for specific goals such as overseas development assistance will further diminish the ability of universities to undertake responsive mode funding. This is related to wider concerns regarding quality-related funding and the implications for basic research from a perceived focus on application-led research. Whilst we do not currently see this as a pressing concern, UKRI should continue to monitor this balance and detail the proportion of ring-fenced funding on ODA in its publications.
131 Research England, Uplift for Research England Quality-Related research funding to support the Government’s 2.4% commitment to R&D. Note that the charity and business research elements of QR are maintained at previous levels.
134 The Royal Society Investing in UK Research and Development, May 2018, p7
138 From Matthew 25:29 “For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance”.
139 Nesta, The Biomedical Bubble, July 2018 p45
140 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, Eight Report of Session 2008–2009 Putting Science and Engineering at the Heart of Government Policy, HC 168-I paras 168–169
146 GuildHE (BER0055) para 50, Russell Group (BER0060)para 7.6, Royal Academy of Engineering (BER0061) para 11, Academy of Medical Sciences (BER0069)para 52.
151 Exploratory research without an end-use in mind.
152 Research aimed at finding a solution to a specific problem.
154 ‘Pure’ research was also described as ‘basic’, ‘investigator-led’, ‘curiosity-driven’ or ‘blue-sky’
155 ‘Applied’ research was also described as ‘application-led’, ‘use-inspired’, ‘industrial pull’ or ‘problem-orientated’.
156 OECD Frascati manual
159 Salter, A & Martin, B; The economic benefits of publicly funded basic research: a critical view
160 Stokes, D.E., 1997. Pasteur’s quadrant: Basic science and technological innovation. Brookings Institution Press.
164 See e.g. Agar, J., 2019. Science Policy under Thatcher. UCL Press.
171 Nesta, The Biomedical Bubble, July 2018
175 BEIS, Ensuring a successful research endeavour: review of the UK research councils by Paul Nurse, November 2015, p26
176 Academy of Social Sciences (BER0034) para 1, Academy of Medical Sciences (BER0069) para 19, Royal Society of Biology (BER0076) para 1.2
181 Frontier Economics, A review of HEFCE capital expenditure, 2015 p8
Published: 12 September 2019