Research England strategic delivery plan (SDP) 2022 to 2025

Foreword

The foreword was written by Professor Dame Jessica Corner, the Executive Chair, Research England, in March 2023.

Every day, millions of people across the country reap the benefits of the research and knowledge exchange happening in UK universities.

With the support and advice of our Council, Research England will continue to work in partnership with universities, research organisations, businesses, charities, government and the public to create the best possible environment for research and innovation to flourish. I am excited to lead Research England during the next phase of its development.

As part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), Research England has been instrumental in building the crucial dual support mechanism that balances research funding from research councils, and business innovation from Innovate UK. I want to pay special tribute to the leadership of David Sweeney in establishing such a well-regarded organisation and in defining Research England’s mission.

The publication of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 confirmed the standing of UK research in universities as world-leading, impactful, and with a larger community of active researchers than ever before. We will continue to invest in our diverse, vibrant research system, building on and sustaining these strengths.

New innovative funding programmes have fostered collaboration with businesses and leveraged private investment into research and development. We will support knowledge exchange and collaboration, build research excellence in novel and emergent fields, especially in settings where capacity is lower, and support and scale initiatives where there is the opportunity for delivering economic growth, improving productivity, and increasing societal impact, at appropriate local to global scales.

In addition to funding, Research England provides system intelligence, data, evidence and insight which has been extraordinarily valuable, especially through the challenges of the pandemic. We will continue to foster a healthy, forward-looking, diverse and inclusive research culture. Partnership working across our four nations is a priority so that our collective efforts and perspectives can be coordinated. By aligning incentives, for example through our Future Research Assessment Programme, we can strengthen the research system across the UK, supporting collaboration and creating a shared sense of purpose.

Over the next two years, we will deliver the plan set out here, continuing our underpinning role in delivering the UKRI strategy, fostering a vibrant and world-leading research and innovation system through developing world-class people and careers, places, ideas, innovation, impacts and a world-class organisation.

By 2025, Research England will distribute £1,974 million of quality-related research (QR) funding to the sector, which is an increase of over 10%. We are also increasing funding to the Higher Education Innovation Fund for knowledge exchange, particularly focused on business and commercialisation. Beyond this, we will continue to direct funding towards initiatives that improve research culture, deliver policy impact and enhance knowledge exchange.

We are committed to supporting local growth and strengthening research facilities and infrastructure. While maintaining support to the UK’s largest research institutions, the wider distribution beyond London and the south-east provides significant new opportunities and allows us to recognise the breadth of excellent research activity demonstrated through REF 2021. Notwithstanding the many pressures faced within the system, this funding will enable universities to prepare the ground for the ambition to further grow the UK research and innovation base. This will contribute to attracting and retaining world-class talent, building the future knowledge economy widely across the UK, directing efforts toward long-term growth, and sharing wider improved societal impacts.

We will work with the higher education funding bodies of the devolved administrations, in close consultation with universities, to agree on the design of the UK’s next research assessment exercise, giving an early indication of any changes that are planned.

As Executive Chair, it will be my responsibility to consider what more Research England can do collectively to deliver exceptional research and innovation and how we best evidence the value of our investments made.

I look forward to working in partnership with colleagues across the sector, in government, and in the devolved administrations to deliver our ambition to create and sustain the conditions for a healthy, dynamic, diverse and inclusive research and knowledge exchange system in the higher education sector.

Who we are and what we do

Who we are

Our role within UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is to provide funding and long-term strategic direction to English universities for research and knowledge exchange. We are the custodian of funding to institutions that balances other funding sources.

We provide high-value strategic and agile funding streams, such as quality-related research (QR) funding underpinned by the Research Excellence Framework (REF) and support for knowledge exchange via Higher Education Innovation Funding.

Our funding programmes also provide targeted support to realise strategic aims, engage in the delivery of government priorities, build capacity, and encourage bottom-up innovation and collaboration. Our funding decisions both at institutional and project levels:

recognise the extraordinary contribution to research and innovation by universities
enable the delivery of individual institutional objectives
facilitate broader contributions to local, national, and global challenges

In parallel, we provide oversight and accountability for significant public investment in research and innovation. Allocation of funding based on performance allows universities to build capacity and capability strategically in areas aligned with their institutional ambitions and to deploy the funding aligned to their missions and objectives.

The role of our research base in supporting our economy and future prosperity is critical and was reflected in the specific guidance to UKRI issued by the former Department of Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, prior to the creation of the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology. Here the government reaffirmed its continuing support for the dual support system in recognising, for example, the importance of QR funding to the UK’s global research success as well as asserting its continued commitment to Higher Education Innovation Funding. Recognising the competitive advantage that university collaboration with industry has enabled, the guidance also requires Research England funding to promote increased collaboration between universities and businesses.

To deliver this, we work collaboratively with external partners to support a diverse, resilient, and connected research and innovation system. We take seriously the principle of partnership working. It is critical that we work with a diversity of organisations and people to inform our understanding of the current and future funding environment and to reflect this insight and evidence in the design of our activities, programmes, and incentives. Through working together, we minimise burden and duplication to ensure a coherent funding system for all English universities.

We work across government and administrations to ensure that our efforts to direct and support research and innovation in universities are aligned with policy across the university missions of research, innovation, education, commitment to place, and global connectedness.

We work closely with our colleagues in the devolved higher education funding bodies of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, both in the delivery of major initiatives, but also to understand and assess system-wide risks and opportunities, sharing learning and cooperating where a UK-wide perspective is appropriate. Likewise, we work with the Office for Students (OfS) to support a coordinated and strategic approach to the higher education system in England, including addressing issues of sustainability and accountability of the sector.

It is important that we work closely with our university partners. Our institutional engagement is underpinned by our institutional engagement strategy It is and characterised by regular interaction with institutional leadership for research and knowledge exchange across all the universities we fund, and with sector groups, regional bodies, and representative organisations. This engagement helps us to develop a nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the research and the knowledge exchange landscape in English higher education.

We also manage important relationships with key higher education bodies and agencies that help UKRI deliver its strategic aims. For example, we:

support the National Centre for Universities and Business to play a unique role as a voice and agency for collaborative cross-sector leadership, and contribution to policy development and delivery
support the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement in establishing dialogue between researchers and the public, thereby promoting the value of public engagement across the sector
support the Research on Research Institute to undertake transformative and translational research on research systems, cultures and decision-making
invest in Jisc to deliver the digital infrastructure and cybersecurity required to support secure, high-capacity and collaborative research. Jisc is the designated data body (DDB) for England, and through it we work closely with the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) whose datasets are used extensively in our activities across research and knowledge exchange, and especially in knowledge exchange in the Higher Education-Business Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey, the HESA Student and Staff Record and Finance Record
support Universities UK International to maintain and grow critical international research and knowledge exchange partnerships globally, and through them to gather evidence and insight into the key challenges of undertaking international collaborative research in a complex and uncertain environment

Additionally, we support universities to respond to emerging priorities and threats as well as opportunities. This includes supporting engagement with important issues, such as Trusted Research, and embedding related activities to strengthen and increase positive impacts on international collaboration and bilateral relationships.

Our valuable relationships enable us to better understand the domestic and international landscape. The richness of this connectivity influences the continued evolution of highly effective higher education research and knowledge exchange policy and leadership, in England and across the UK. It is vital that we continue to demonstrate both leadership and partnership to drive up quality, and to support the diversity of the research and innovation higher education system to widen the distribution of the benefits across society.

What we do

We have a deep understanding of the research and innovation system, analysing trends and drivers for future priorities as well as how the system should develop. On behalf of all four UK higher education funding bodies, we manage the system for assessing the excellence of research in UK universities. Together we are working through a programme of activity to explore how to assess UK higher education research performance. This aims to better understand what a healthy, thriving, research system looks like, and how the assessment model can best ensure we maintain a world-class, dynamic, and responsive research base.

We gather data and intelligence concerning the direction, health, and performance of university research and innovation to inform the design of our funding programmes. This rich grasp of, and connectedness to, the sector allows us to understand the impact and effectiveness of national policy on the higher education sector’s performance. This informs the investment decisions by others, including by businesses and other sectors, and influencing career decisions by talented researchers across the world.

It also ensures we target support to realise strategic aims, engage in the delivery of government priorities, build capacity, and encourage bottom-up innovation and collaboration. This includes using our Research England Development Fund to develop and spread institutional innovations and best practices, improving the value for money of the sector overall. Our Research England Development Fund investments are particularly powerful in building upon local dialogue and initiatives between universities and local partners.

Our funding decisions both at institutional and project levels recognise the extraordinary contribution to research and innovation by universities across the whole of England, wherever excellence and high performance is found. It enables universities to deliver individual institutional objectives, and facilitate broader contributions to local, national, and global challenges of benefit to the economy and wider society. It gives them the freedom to take strategic risks on emerging and diverse areas of work, where there are potential opportunities not yet ready for competitive funding processes and incentivises them to form novel partnerships and collaborations with industry and business.

Our funding supports, university staff, research students and infrastructure critical to making high-quality research and knowledge exchange possible and enables them to develop diverse teams, disciplines and talent from across the world.

Examples of Research England’s activity

We promote knowledge exchange through the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) which provides comparative information about the knowledge exchange performance of English universities. This enables universities to better understand and improve their performance and provides other stakeholders with information on the world-class knowledge and expertise within these universities.

We support research infrastructure within universities through Research Capital Investment Fund alongside funding schemes such as the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund which has so far secured commitments of over £2 billion of co-investments from industry partners to charitable organisations.

We build strategic growth of excellent research units and departments across England where they are currently operating at a limited scale of activity, by supporting sustainable expansion. The Expanding Excellence in England fund supports activity that pushes the frontiers of human knowledge and delivers transformative impacts while enhancing the skills bases and diversifying talent in any given discipline.

We stimulate innovation and collaboration by recognising the role that our funding plays in incentivising good practice and enhancing performance. We focus on implementing policy and funding approaches that identify and support the dissemination of best practices, drive effectiveness, efficiency, and continuous improvement and provide leadership for the development of research systems in partnership nationally and internationally. We encourage universities to collaborate both with each other and with wider stakeholders to achieve this.

What we will achieve

We will invest more than £8 billion across the current spending review period (financial years 2022 to 2023, 2023 to 2024, and 2024 to 2025).

Through our funding, and by building new capacity and capability, we will:

continue to invest to maintain the standing of the higher education sector and universities in England
make significant contributions to government priorities
support our universities to deliver wide-ranging societal impact

We will continue to support and challenge universities, ensuring the right incentives, to enable them to develop ambitious research and knowledge exchange strategies that both anticipate exciting opportunities and respond to local, national and global challenges and the needs of their partners. We will also incentivise them to be both creative and collaborative, to foster widespread advances in knowledge, growth in expertise and development of skills that benefit us all.

We will also make more visible the immediate and longer-term outcomes of our investment, ensuring that we foster a better understanding of the value of our investments and the additional private sector investment it generates. We will work with recipients of our funding to strengthen evidence of their impacts by sharing data and insights with government and we will work with our stakeholders to ensure that contributions from the higher education research and innovation (R&I) system are more clearly illustrated and understood. We will continue to improve our methods for collecting and collating data to support this.

We have established ourselves as a trusted partner across the R&I system and government, but it is our ambition to become a stronger knowledge organisation building on the evidence we hold and the relationships we continue to nurture and establish. Our activities will not compromise the robustness and integrity of our assessment exercises, the environments in which our funding is deployed, or the practices and behaviours implemented in response to funding.

Through our ‘Review of knowledge exchange funding’, we will implement the conclusions of our review of the fundamentals of our knowledge exchange policy and funding approaches. We will clarify the purpose of the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF), which is already delivering important benefits in the higher education sector, by improving the status of knowledge exchange and helping to improve data. This includes making a commitment to develop the KEF Framework further, including toward long-term use in funding as part of the established Higher Education Innovation Funding formula method.

We will participate in the review of the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) Higher Education Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey. This survey is the most comprehensive and long-running data set in the world measuring a wide range of interactions between universities and economic and societal partners that create significant impact. In parallel, we will develop our national capability as a centre for improving metrics and evidence for the long term and we will participate in the review of the HESA HE-BCI survey.

Beginning in 2023, we will review our approach to strategic institutional research funding, considering the fundamental principles and our funding allocation mechanisms, in consultation with the sector and wider stakeholders. The outcomes of the review will inform funding allocations beginning in the academic year (AY) 2025 to 2026 and will shape the Future Research Assessment Programme.

We will also continue our commitment to developing UK-wide solutions, such as through the Strength in Places Fund programme or through schemes such as the UK Research Partnership Innovation Fund These schemes nurture confidence in the UK higher education research and innovation system and that results in continued opportunities to co-invest and collaborate.

Working with our colleagues in the higher education funding bodies across the UK, we will progress plans for the future of UK research assessment, ensuring that our collective funding system continues to encourage and strengthen the delivery of excellent research and impact. At the same time supporting a healthy research culture, without creating a disproportionate burden for the sector.

We will develop a research assessment framework that underpins a research system producing high-quality, rigorous research that is open to all, and supports a diverse, inclusive, collaborative and impactful system connecting research with wider society to bring about positive socio-economic change.

We have an extraordinary opportunity to deliver on our ambitions and look forward to doing so in partnership with others who share similar motivations for the English, and wider UK, higher education research and innovation sector. Our strategic delivery plan brings to life not just what we intend to do, but how, and importantly, why.

Our purpose

Research England aims to create and sustain the conditions for a healthy, dynamic, diverse and inclusive research and knowledge exchange system in the higher education sector and does so by working in partnership with stakeholders and through funding English universities and key partners.

Our strategic objectives

Our strategic objectives provide the framework for how we will achieve our vision and realise our principles, through world-class:

World-class people and careers

Empowering universities to create the internal conditions and environments that best develop people and teams by:

fostering the development of early-career research talent
promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion
supporting recruitment and the research career pipeline
increasing mobility and porosity between universities and wider society including businesses, investors, and other partners

World-class places

Supporting universities to help places and communities thrive economically and societally by:

strengthening capacity to allow universities to identify and respond to needs of local and regional communities
establishing and strengthening their roles at different levels and within differing communities
supporting local partnerships to understand opportunities and challenges, and produce tailored approaches and solutions
working across the four nations to evaluate and ensure the financial sustainability of the research and knowledge exchange system in UK higher education
promoting international partnership working

World-class ideas

Providing universities with the targeted support needed to identify novel ways of addressing some of the biggest challenges and remain responsive to evolving, and sometimes complex, agendas by:

investing £8 billion across 2022 to 2025 in universities in England
begin a review of our approach to strategic institutional research funding for implementation beyond the academic year (AY) 2025 to 2026 working with our universities to improve the transparency around the uses and effectiveness of our strategic institutional research funding

World-class innovation

Enabling universities to understand and develop their particular innovation strengths and capabilities to maximise impacts on the UK economy and societal prosperity by:

allocating £260 million of core funding plus an additional £20 million for a business and commercialisation supplement each year
appointing a specialist commercialisation group of overseas, entrepreneurial, and investor partners to advise Research England
contributing to UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) commercialisation funding framework

World-class impacts

Support universities to deliver in the short-term but also invest for the longer term by:

challenging universities to innovate in ways that they might not do otherwise
facilitating collaboration and stimulating opportunities to share best practices within the higher education sector and across diverse partners
improving evidence and metrics taking into account local and global agendas. This includes supporting universities with their partners to understand needs and approaches taking the appropriate spatial lens

A world-class organisation

Supported by a world-class organisation, this includes:

empowering talented people to collaborate and thrive as part of a diverse and inclusive workforce
striving to be an efficient, agile organisation, which always seeks to innovate and continuously improve
engaging in constructive dialogue with universities and other stakeholders to understand and observe broad cross-cutting issues and approaches including teaching and learning, universities’ international developments and financial sustainability, and support activities to address these at scale

Objective 1: world-class people and careers

Our thriving higher education sector is dynamic and continues to develop. The talented people working across our research and knowledge exchange base deliver advances, spread the benefits of knowledge, and stimulate innovations. However, there are opportunities to do more to create incentives for more flexible careers, recognise different career pathways and environments that help teams to flourish.

Through our funding, we will empower universities to create the internal conditions and environments that best develop people and teams. Our funding will encourage universities to:

foster the development of early-career research talent
promote equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI)
broaden the skill set of the next generation

Our funding will provide direct investment in staff capacity and capability, supporting recruitment and the research career pipeline through the strategic growth of small, excellent research units. At the same time, we will support increased mobility and porosity between universities and wider society, strengthening the interconnections with businesses, investors and other partners. In this way, advanced knowledge and expertise will be increasingly mobile across:

disciplines
communities
schools
businesses
policymaking, locally, nationally, and internationally

This combined approach will play an important part in improving career opportunities, delivering economic growth, and maximising research and knowledge impacts across sectors.

We will:

enable universities to support their postgraduate researcher communities by allocating ongoing quality-driven strategic institutional funding. The quality-related Research Degree Programme (RDP) Supervision funding will provide £332 million in academic year (AY) 2022 to 2023. We intend to continue to invest at this level through 2024 and 2025
embed equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) considerations throughout our policy activity and funding delivery, including taking a strategic approach to review the contribution our programmes make to EDI in the sector by:
- improving the coordination of our activities and providing leadership for developing a more diverse and inclusive research and knowledge exchange system
- working collaboratively with the higher education sector to deliver our EDI action plan for 2024 to 2025 to drive the development of a more inclusive research and knowledge exchange system as a sector leader, funder, and employer, and through enhancing the evidence base
support the development of diverse and inclusive research careers, including:
- publishing initial decisions in June 2023 on the design of the next national research assessment exercise
- ongoing investment from our Research England Development Fund
- supporting the National Centre for Universities and Business’s mobility task force
improve access and participation in all stages of the postgraduate research cycle for Black, Asian, and minority ethnic students through investment in the £8 million joint Research England and Office for Students (OfS) funding programme until 2025 to 2026. This will include sharing learning and good practice identified through the programme at an interim event in 2024
consider priorities in mobility and entrepreneurial talent development through a strategic review in 2023 of achievements and long-term directions through the Research England Development Fund
support the development of an enhanced research culture in English universities through targeted flexible funding, such as our Enhancing Research Culture Fund with £30 million each year committed throughout AY 2022 to 2023 and AY 2023 to 2024, and by supporting innovative ideas for transforming research culture through funding of a responsive proposal to the Research England Development Fund
enable small and excellent research units to scale up, build capability and develop new generations of talent by launching a second round of the Expanding Excellence in England fund, through £180 million of funding in 2023. Funding will run for five years from AY 2024 to 2025 onwards
work with Universities UK and the Wellcome Trust, to complete the second phase of the Concordats and Agreements Review in 2023, which will explore potential alignments to increase influence, capacity, and efficiency across the frameworks and practices that contribute to research cultures and environments in which UK research and innovation take place
provide coordination to the higher education sector’s engagement with the Trusted Research agenda, working in partnership with universities and government departments to share learning and support international research collaboration. For example:
- work with Associate of Research Managers and Administrators to facilitate response to the recommendations of their report published in March 2023
- making freely available the higher education export control training tool developed as part of the University of Cranfield project funded through the Research England Development Fund
- work in partnership with the sector and relevant government authorities to enable opportunities to share practice and learning in England, across the UK, and internationally

Highlight: Research England Development Fund

Working in a partnership of universities supported by the Chartered Association of Business Schools the University of Exeter is leading a programme of support for early career researchers to better identify opportunities for collaboration with businesses and confidently engage with external organisations to address shared challenges.

The development aims to increase the movement of researchers, improve employability routes and participation in business research and development, and responds to the government priority to increase the porosity of higher education and business working together. This is supported by a £5 million Research England Development Fund award, made in January 2023.

Highlight: joint Research England and OfS funding programme

In November 2021 we announced 13 new projects to improve access and participation for Black, Asian, and minority ethnic groups in postgraduate research by:

stimulating innovation, scale-up, and distribute effective practice
ambitiously addressing evidenced issues of inequality across the postgraduate research student lifecycle that create barriers for students
collaborating strategically to embed equality, diversity, and inclusion across the sector

These projects are innovative in scope, scale, and focus, to an extent that has not been seen in England before. We supported them as part of an £8 million joint Research England and OfS funding opportunity.

Case study: supporting entrepreneurial students to help grow businesses

Research England’s Higher Education Innovation Funding supports key enterprise staff and small grants for student entrepreneurs, enabling the design of a strong and robust programme to deliver sustainable businesses while developing entrepreneurial skills, confidence and ambition amongst Teesside students.

Teesside University’s flagship enterprise service, Launchpad, nurtures an inclusive community of entrepreneurs by providing tailored support and creative spaces to start up, experiment, and collaborate. Since March 2020, Launchpad has provided intensive support for 23 young businesses, plus 11 start-ups, making a significant contribution to high-value business creation and growth in the Tees Valley.

Objective 2: world-class places

People benefit from research and innovation across the country, and beyond, as knowledge and expertise is deployed to tackle global challenges. Universities across England possess a great range of important and diverse capabilities; they are built differently both in their physical design and in what they contribute at local, national, and global levels. Each university has distinct research and knowledge exchange strategies; they are diverse in their staff, cohorts, physical infrastructures, and facilities; and they have unique partnerships.

Our support helps universities deliver to their particular strengths locally, nationally and globally.

The outcomes of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 provide robust evidence of the wide distribution of excellent research across England and the rest of the UK. Over 80% of submitted research was judged to be world-leading (4*) or internationally excellent (3*) in each UK nation and English region, and across a broad group of universities, of all sizes and types, with world-leading quality identified in 99% of participating universities.

REF 2021 has revealed world-leading research that is widely distributed in universities across the whole of the UK and is recognised through the QR funding allocations to universities in England. Place is an important component to the Knowledge Exchange Framework, providing performance evidence.

The flexibility of our funding allows universities to establish and strengthen the many roles they play at local, national and international levels, and within their differing communities. This can be based on where the university is geographically situated, their capacity to fulfil their and their partners’ research and knowledge exchange ambitions and potential. Block grant funding can be deployed according to where the university determines it will be most effective, in particular to support local economic growth and social impact. Our project funding can be used to supports universities to work collaboratively on strategic issues and priorities.

We are particularly focused on unlocking value from our formula funding through targeted place-related projects through our Research England Development Fund. We seek to support universities to identify the unique understanding of local partners, and of the real opportunities and challenges on the ground, producing tailored approaches that are agile and timely. We wish to support universities to seize opportunities and to respond to the most immediate local and national priorities. Our increased attention to evidence, metrics, identifying and sharing good practice will also contribute.

Investing capital funding in UK universities through the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund, will:

enhance their research facilities
drive strategic partnerships between universities and other organisations active in research
stimulate significant additional private investment in research and development, strengthening its contribution to economic growth

Alongside this, we continue to provide flexible capital funding through the Research Capital Investment Fund to support universities’ strategic investment in the development, maintenance and upgrade of their research estate. This funding will feature as part of the review of strategic institutional research funding beginning in 2023.

At a time of financial constraint and pressure on resources, we are working closely with our higher education funding body partners in the devolved administrations and the Office for Students to evaluate the sustainability of the research and knowledge exchange system in UK higher education. In addition, we monitor broader issues affecting the higher education sector and with implications for our work, including in undergraduate education and overseas development.

We will:

continue to recognise the breadth of research excellence identified across England in the REF 2021 outcomes in our annual quality-driven strategic institutional funding allocations, from AY 2022 to 2023 and for the remainder of this spending review period
place a greater focus on the regional context to grow research and recognise the role that research units play to benefit local economies, society, and cultures through Expanding Excellence in England round two which will award £180 million over five years, with a competition starting in 2023
continue to support the development of world-leading infrastructure in universities through an investment of £100 million in UK Research Partnership Investment Fund. We will complete the allocation of round seven funding during 2023 and support the delivery of projects in 2024 and 2025. We will also gather evidence on the effectiveness of the whole UK Research Partnership Investment Fund programme during 2023 as part of a long-term evaluation programme covering five years
begin work, in 2023, to better understand the current condition and future needs of research infrastructure across English universities, developing methods of data collection across the sector
build on the success of our Research England Development Fund, review its priorities, including on place and continue to support projects that are timely and agile, and provide tailored solutions reflecting drivers and unique understandings of universities with their local partners

Case study: empowering local pockets of excellence to reach global markets

A £5.8 million Expanding Excellence in England investment has been crucial in allowing the University of Portsmouth’s Centre for Enzyme Innovation (CEI) to grow from a mall nucleus of expert academics to a flourishing research unit undertaking both applied projects and fundamental science.

The funding was used to build and equip state-of-the-art laboratories for enzyme engineering and to recruit a critical mass of research and technical staff. This has been vital in establishing CEI as a global leader in the research and development of technology to support a circular plastics economy.

It has also enabled CEI to engage with multinationals and catalysed wider funding opportunities, including:

philanthropic gifts
additional UKRI funding,
a £1 million award from the Solent Local Enterprise Partnership to expand the CEI to include laboratories for bio-recycling and polymer chemistry, an industrial engagement hub and a dedicated suite for postgraduate research students

The enhanced global profile of CEI’s Expanding Excellence in England-funded research has also led to a successful collaboration with Google DeepMind and enabled an ongoing research partnership with a multinational beverage company.

UK Research Partnership Investment Fund

The UK Research Partnership Investment Fund provides funding for large-scale capital projects that underpins excellent research.

By the end of 2022, this scheme will have awarded over £900 million of capital funding to 53 state-of-the-art research centres and facilities in universities across the UK, leveraging over £2.2 billion of co-investment from industry partners, charitable organisations and philanthropic donors. This includes nine projects funded under the net zero pilot designed to support capital activities that will make existing research facilities, funded through the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund, more environmentally sustainable.

Over half of the projects are now operational, creating new space for academics to work alongside clinicians, industrial partners, and local small and medium enterprises. A 2018 interim evaluation of the scheme found the following benefits realised to date:

transforming discovery science into healthcare solutions
establishing research centres in the UK as leaders of industry standards
positive impact on international collaborations with universities, industry, and charities
positive impact on research outputs such as academic papers, policy white papers, licences, and patents
replacing dispersed research equipment spread across labs with single, open plan laboratories
positive impact on market readiness of research for use by consumers and society
increase in PhD student numbers and postdoctoral research associates with industry sponsorship in UK Research Partnership Investment Fund facilities

We will:

invest £100 million in a further round of funding from the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund by the end of the current spending review period
develop an evaluation framework to measure the impact of the fund

Objective 3: world-class ideas

Research England’s £8 billion investment in universities in England recognises the excellence of our university research base and the strength of its external partnerships in supporting sustainable economic growth and improving benefits for more people across England and beyond.

Ambition and the generation of new ideas are core to our university system. The wide range of different ways of looking at known problems and inventiveness in finding solutions to unknown problems enables university research to find novel ways of addressing some of the biggest challenges and unlock the biggest opportunities. Knowledge exchange creates linkages between universities and the wider world, and this porosity of institutions helps both mobility of people and diffusion of ideas, maximising societal impacts.

The performance-driven funding from quality-related research (QR) and Higher Education Innovation Funding provides the long-term investment needed by universities to:

develop their crucial research and knowledge exchange capabilities
unlock the knowledge, expertise, and contributions of hundreds of thousands of research and knowledge exchange staff, early career researchers and students

Recognising the role of this strategic and flexible institutional funding, our investment will continue to enable agile, dynamic, and strategic approaches to research investment by universities and the development of world-class research and ideas. Our project funding provides an injection of targeted support that enables universities to be responsive to evolving, and sometimes complex, agendas.

We will:

invest £1,974 million annually through QR funding which allows universities to support the development of ideas and novel areas of research, including where there are potential opportunities not yet ready for competitive funding processes
initiate a review of our approach to strategic institutional research funding in 2023 with a view to consulting with the sector on any potential changes in 2024 to 2025 and beginning to implement changes to the approach from the academic year (AY) 2025 to 2026. This work will be integrated with the ongoing Future Research Assessment Programme and will, additionally, support the implementation of the response to the Independent Review of the Research, Development and Innovation Organisational Landscape led by Sir Paul Nurse
during 2023, work with our funded institutions to improve the transparency around the uses of our strategic institutional research funding, enhancing the evidence base on the funding’s effectiveness
deploy the Research England Development Fund to make strategic investments in higher education research and knowledge exchange in line with government and our priorities to drive innovation in research and knowledge exchange in higher education
deliver a review of Higher Education Museums, Galleries and Collections funding in order to commence new funding arrangements from AY 2024 to 2025

Case study: leveraging investments to revolutionise UK Earth observation research

The Manufacturing, Engineering, Technology, and Earth Observation Research Centre (METEOR) has become a key part of Space Park Leicester. New facilities, including laboratories, clean rooms, workshops, offices, a concurrent design studio, and virtual reality cave, provide space to co-locate both academic and industrial research and development and revolutionise how satellites are conceived, designed, operated, and produced.

Research England awarded the University of Leicester £13.75 million from UK Research Partnership Investment Fund, who leveraged £28.6 million in matched funding from a range of partners including Airbus, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Planet Labs for construction and fit out of 5,000 metres squared of research and innovation facilities.

Highlight: complementarity of QR funding

Tyseley Energy Park (TEP) in east Birmingham will play a key role in turning the city into a leading centre for energy solutions. TEP is shaping how the city develops infrastructure for renewable heat and power, energy storage, clean transport fuels, and advanced waste processing.

The University of Birmingham supported the Birmingham Energy Innovation Centre at the TEP with £3 million of QR and £0.5 million of International Investment Initiative funding from Research England.

QR enabled postgraduate and postdoctoral capacity and capability in energy research to be scaled up across Europe and provided support for the development of pre-commercial demonstrators, and the International Investment Initiative fund supported the scale-up of a three-way multinational research partnership providing a comprehensive research pipeline in biofuels and energy technologies research. The flexibility of QR investment has allowed an acceleration of the impact of these new energy technologies into the marketplace, including through the development of new policy and pre-commercial demonstrators.

Objective 4: world-class innovation

Universities play a key role in the development and delivery of the innovation system, they:

provide research, innovation, and entrepreneurial talent
provide professional capabilities, infrastructure, finance, and the physical capital, and supporting networks necessary to the innovation process
contribute to collaborative leadership with business, other enterprises, and with local communities

Our research and knowledge exchange funding enables universities to understand and develop their particular innovation capabilities and hence play to their particular strengths. Setting the right strategic objectives, investing wisely in their capacity, and selecting and working with key partners are all key to maximising external impacts on the UK economy and on societal prosperity.

We are particularly focused on supporting the government’s growth agenda, with an immediate priority of increasing activity and achievement in business collaboration and commercialisation. This builds upon the successful innovations developed by universities through the additional focus and funding on industrial priorities since the establishment of Research England and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and new priorities from the Innovation Strategy. It also reflects government priorities on local growth and in the Levelling Up White Paper.

We will continue to seek advice from international and entrepreneurial experts to ensure that we understand and invest in the most important and timely opportunities and challenges related to growth, and funding at the global leading edge.

We will:

deliver an uplift in university business and commercialisation funding and achievement for the financial years 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025 period including:
- publishing a baseline for monitoring achievement in business and commercialisation funding and performance
- publishing a sector-wide overview of progress in business and commercialisation funding and performance based on Higher Education Innovation Funding monitoring and Higher Education-Business Community Interaction performance data in 2024 and 2025
continue to deliver the Higher Education Innovation Funding to support universities to deliver the priorities set out in the Innovation Strategy and Levelling Up White Paper, including:
- allocating £260 million of core funding plus an additional £20 million for a business and commercialisation supplement each year to contribute to the delivery of the government’s priority for increased funding and focus on these topics; and put in place low burden accountability and monitoring to assess our progress in achieving these priorities
- collecting annual monitoring information in 2024 and 2025 on achievements of Higher Education Innovation Funding from universities
- continue making annual allocations of the Higher Education Innovation Funding business and commercialisation supplement; and announcing a new accountability approach and priorities for the next planning period in 2025
appoint a specialist commercialisation group of overseas, entrepreneurial, and investor partners to advise Research England, including the Research England Development Fund panel, on funding through the Connecting Capability Fund stream. This will allow us to target the highest priorities in commercialisation, support global best practices and allocate up to £60 million in the period against those priorities. This includes building on insights from our investment in Connecting Capability Fund projects to date, through our commissioning of expert support for the programme which will provide national policy evidence and good practice materials
contribute to UKRI’s commercialisation funding framework and, building on our work with the higher education sector, identify and spread global best practices in commercialisation, including through TenU and our evidence and metrics programme

Highlight: Higher Education Innovation Funding

Hartpury University’s Digital Innovation Farm (DIF) brings together a broad network of agri-tech companies and local farms to cultivate business relationships and to test, refine, and evaluate the potential of new technologies.

DIF is driving productivity within an important sector in Gloucestershire, acting as a magnet for firms at the forefront of agri-tech and developing innovative technologies to support and push the government’s net zero targets’ forwards. Our Higher Education Innovation Funding has been integral to its success, supporting key staff and attracting high-growth businesses through DIF’s specialist provision and networks.

Highlight: TenU

TenU partners with world-leading university Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) to develop and share best practice and policy insights on research commercialisation and increase the economic and societal impact of research across the university sector, here and abroad. TenU:

builds evidence in cutting-edge practice in research commercialisation
provides strategic policy advice to government
promotes sector-wide engagement through their TenU hosts events and work with practitioner partner organisations
convenes working groups to strengthen university and investor relationships in different sectors
develops talent and skills within the technology transfer community through their TenU Future Leaders Programme, demonstrating new ways of working with diverse talent across the higher education sector

We support TenU collaborators based at:

University of Cambridge
Columbia University
University of Edinburgh
Imperial College London
KU Leuven
The University of Manchester
MIT
University of Oxford
Stanford University
UCL, hosted by Cambridge Enterprise

Case study: attracting private investment to scale innovative businesses

Northern Gritstone (NG) is a new investment company that invests at seed stages and onwards to ensure capital provision for science and innovation based businesses through their growth phases.

A £7 million Research England Connecting Capability Fund award to the Universities of Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield enabled the universities to demonstrate NG’s commercial potential to investors.

NG has already generated £247 million in private finance and has reviewed over 350 opportunities since it started investing in May 2022, many of which originate from the partner universities. This is creating intellectual property-rich, research-intensive businesses forming a Northern innovation cluster with potential for local economic and societal impacts.

Objective 5: world-class impacts

Economic growth is a critical challenge nationally and across the globe, alongside and intertwined with other critical challenges such as:

cost of living crises
food security
climate change
health and wellbeing post-pandemic

Universities are a critical part of the solution to these challenges, while at the same time experiencing many of these pressures themselves. Attention to delivering important impacts from funding, including efficient and effective approaches to this, will be critical to demonstrate they are effective delivery partners across shared domestic and international agendas.

Universities are particularly well placed to contribute to delivery of UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) objective to deliver economic and societal benefits for people across all of the country. This includes understanding how we describe and measure impacts, and how these are achieved.

Universities are both agile and resilient, with strong networks and partnerships, and have a huge wealth of knowledge and skills, alongside large and well-developed infrastructure. Importantly, they can mobilise their capacity, capabilities and partners in focused ways to drive targeted solutions to key priorities.

We will support universities to share the findings of their research with the public, raising awareness of the impact of university research in a compelling, and considered way through the production and publication of rigorous, research-led commentary on major global challenges and issues.

As significant co-investors in their research and knowledge exchange endeavours, it is essential that Research England funding continues to support universities to deliver in the short term but also invest for the longer term. We must challenge universities to innovate in ways that they might not do otherwise, facilitate collaboration and further co-working, stimulate opportunities to share best practice and improve underpinning evidence and metrics to identify what works and what outcomes are achieved.

We will:

publish and implement initial decisions on our review of our knowledge exchange funding, and eligibility policy
develop our national capability as a centre for evidence, metrics, and data relevant to knowledge exchange performance, particularly commercialisation and impact. This includes gathering the necessary data to enable a Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) to meet its ambition to capture the breadth of knowledge exchange and to be used in funding decisions. For the next phase of development, we have commissioned University Commercialisation and Innovation (UCI) Policy Evidence Unit to work with us and we will engage with other key partners
hold a major national conference in spring 2024 on priorities for knowledge exchange and impact evidence and metrics (including KEF development) engaging a wider range of policymakers and institutional, economic and societal partners in a long-term strategic vision
take account of results from the knowledge exchange review on our overall approaches to prepare and publish the KEF 3 exercise in summer 2023, focusing on updating clusters and putting in place appropriate low-burden approaches to assessment, as well as continuing with the publication of the KEF 4 exercise in summer 2024
deliver a comprehensive and innovative programme of evaluation and impact evidence on all our major programmes including publishing findings on the value and impact of strategic institutional research funding (both resource and capital)
following the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund net zero fund investment in the academic year (AY) 2022 to 2023, undertake a review of the effectiveness of the scheme and its role in achieving major strategic objectives in order to share best practice, to further integrate net zero into the wider UK Research Partnership Investment Fund programme and to strengthen the consideration of environmental sustainability across other Research England and wider UKRI funded programmes
continue to deliver the Participatory Research Fund throughout the spending review period to provide targeted flexible funding for co-produced and participatory research, thereby involving a wider pool of people, organisations and approaches in research resulting in benefits to lives locally, nationally, and internationally
maintain our commitment to the Policy Support Fund, allocating £29 million across the spending review period, in at least AY2022 to 2023 and AY2023 to 2024, in support of policy related research and activity, facilitating partnership working with policy makers and the exchange of ideas, knowledge and people working in this field
announce plans to recognise and reward a wider range of impacts in the next national research assessment exercise
publish a detailed analysis of the almost 7,000 impact case studies submitted to the Research Excellence Framework 2021 to form evidence of the broad impact of higher education research on wider society

Case study: improving the affordability of COVID-19 tests

Higher Education Innovation Funding has enabled the University of Surrey to provide academic expertise and incubation support to Vidiia Ltd, a local software company, to enable an affordable and accurate point-of-care COVID-19 test to be brought to market.

Building on a collaborative approach to develop an initial test prototype by the Universities of Surrey, Lancaster, and Brunel, Surrey’s Higher Education Innovation Funding was then essential in allowing academic expertise and resource to support Vidiia Ltd in securing over £250,000 of private investment and accelerating their commercialisation of an intelligent COVID-19 test platform

This test is now being adapted for a national tuberculosis testing programme in Ghana. Vidiia was awarded a grant from the Medical Research Council and a trial is currently underway.

Case study: reducing the carbon footprint of air transport

Cranfield University is unlocking further research and innovation potential from its two aerospace and aviation-focused research facilities supported by UK Research Partnership Investment Fund: The Aerospace Integration Research Centre (AIRC) and the Digital Aviation Research and Technology Centre (DARTeC). The university purchased a hydrogen electrolyser, mobile hydrogen vehicle refuelling system, and electric and fuel-cell ground operations vehicles that will reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from research flying and airside operations at Cranfield, amounting to 305 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year.

New sensors and instruments will extend the capabilities of Cranfield’s Living Lab research system to monitor emissions information. This project will make a significant contribution to the ambition of net zero aviation by 2050, developing low-carbon aircraft and decarbonising airport logistics.

Research England supported Cranfield’s net zero project with a £3.1 million UK Research Partnership Investment Fund net zero award, complementing £10 million and £15.5 million awards in AIRC and DARTeC via the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund scheme.

Case study: deliver better patient experiences in the NHS through knowledge exchange

Students are providing valuable knowledge and insights to NHS staff across multiple care providers in applied theatre techniques, empathy training, skills, and experience with technology. Their multiintervention approaches aim to address social isolation, improve patient wellbeing, and lift staff morale through applied theatre, film, and virtual reality technologies.

The project is enabling students to gain valuable skills and experience in arts and health settings, while disseminating a model of best practice for knowledge exchange in arts and health that will be transferable to the wider sector. Our joint £566,000 knowledge exchange award with the Office for Students to the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama is supporting students as co-creators in the design, implementation, and evaluation of projects.

Objective 6: world-class organisation

As part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), Research England strives to be an efficient, agile organisation, which always seeks to innovate and continuously improve.

Our formula-based investment in universities underpins our approach, ensuring that we invest efficiently and empower the organisations we fund to use our resources flexibly for maximum impact, taking account of their knowledge and expertise. We will regularly review and evaluate our programmes to ensure they remain effective and deliver against agreed outcomes.

Our staff will leverage their extensive knowledge of our unique approach to research and knowledge exchange funding to help deliver our objectives. We will use our strong partnerships with universities and others to gather data and evidence to shape an understanding of the research and innovation system. By harnessing our close working relationships with the devolved administrations higher education funding bodies, and wider government, we will influence and catalyse change, creating the conditions for a healthy, dynamic, diverse and inclusive research and knowledge exchange system.

Improving ways of working

Research England is a knowledge-driven organisation, drawing on the talents and commitment of our people to deliver our ambitions for the research and knowledge exchange system. We will build on and grow our existing strengths in analytics and data-driven policy and funding, in collecting and analysing information on the sustainability, efficiency and excellence of the research base in England, and in maintaining a deep understanding of English university activity and strategy.

Through our strategic approach to equality, diversity and inclusion, we will seize the opportunity to build a more diverse and inclusive workforce empowered to deliver sector-wide leadership by catalysing new ways of working and bringing people together.

We will invest in and empower our talented people to collaborate and thrive. We will do so through working closely with other UKRI colleagues, with the research and innovation community, and with other sectors to improve standards, maximise the impact of our investments, and deliver change.

To deliver the impact that we want to make, we must:

be efficient and effective in our operations
be transparent and open in our policy development and implementation
be rigorous in evaluating our own effectiveness,
strive to embed environmental sustainability across everything we do

We will:

through greater coordination of our equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) activities and our EDI action plan for 2024 to 2025, seek to support the development of a more diverse and inclusive research and knowledge exchange system
fully utilise the newly implemented analytical and data system, increase effective engagement across UKRI under the new operating model, develop our capacity and capabilities to combine quantitative and qualitative evidence, further draw upon information already provided via processes such as the Research Excellence Framework to support policy implementation and our understanding of the context in which our investments are made
work with the other higher education funding bodies to maximise the value of information and data collected through the next research assessment exercise to gain further insights into the health of the research system
as part of UKRI, respond to all the relevant Grant Review recommendations through our wider organisational change programmes (including transitioning our funding to the new Funding Service, where appropriate), ensuring value for the UK taxpayer, and delivering within our agreed operating budget
work with colleagues from the newly formed Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology on the evaluation of the interventions put in place to support the research system during the COVID-19 pandemic. By July 2023, we aim to complete monitoring of the delivery of the Sustaining University Research Expertise (SURE) fund programme

Catalysing change and impact through partnership and leadership

Through our partnership working, we will continue to monitor broader issues affecting the higher education sector. We recognise the interconnectedness of teaching, research, and knowledge exchange in universities’ activity, especially in terms of the financial sustainability of the research system. This holistic view of the context in which research and knowledge exchange takes place includes:

understanding trends in student recruitment (both home and overseas)
capital developments
the wider regulatory and funding environment
providers’ strategic priorities, opportunities, and risks

We will work closely with representative bodies from all parts of the higher education sector to understand cross-cutting issues and approaches and to support activities at scale, such as net zero. This will continue to enable universities to identify opportunities to contribute to the national and international research and innovation system, as well as to the delivery of UKRI’s priorities. In addition, we will engage internationally, ensuring universities contribute to the development of good practice globally and can access pivotal international scholarships and funding.

We will use our engagements with universities to keep sighted on the relationships and opportunities for institutions and their partners. This conscious approach to partnership working also allows us to consider how we incentivise better practice and collaboration across shared agendas and global challenges for example, in how to foster environmental sustainability across our universities and our collective endeavour around net zero.

We recognise that, although investments in research and knowledge exchange are made separately across the four countries of the UK, there is a significant dividend from having a collective understanding of the challenges and opportunities for the research system across the UK. We will continue to cooperate with the devolved higher education funding bodies to achieve this. Similarly, we will work closely with the Office for Students (OfS), as the regulator and funder of universities in England, to consider how research, teaching, and knowledge exchange can complement each another, and reflect intersections between these activities in the funding models of universities.

Through our investment in Jisc, we significantly support the digital infrastructure and the cybersecurity capabilities required for secure national and international research collaboration between and across universities and research establishments in the context of the Trusted Research agenda. Our investment helps maintain and enhance the Janet Network, connecting the UK higher education sector to the rest of the digital research world and providing secure, high-capacity research infrastructure and a high-speed digital foundation for collaborative research.

Through our strong partnerships, we deliver the UKRI principles for change by:

supporting diversity and creativity
increasing local, national, and global connectivity
enabling resilience through our funding routes
widening engagement

We will:

implement the findings of our review of institutional engagement to enhance our relationships with the higher education sector, including refreshing our institutions engagement strategy in 2023. A key premise of this work will be to identify ways in which the insight we gather from our engagement with the sector can be brought together to identify key issues and opportunities and to support funding and policy interventions
pilot a series of barometer surveys starting in 2023, which will investigate sentiment within universities towards new financial commitments for research staff, infrastructure, and resources to track the financial resilience of the research system over time
use our convening role to enable the sector to share examples and experiences of using our formula and other funding and our approaches to supporting good practice, for example:
- concerning our recent investments in participatory research
- to develop a positive and inclusive research culture
- to contribute to place-focused developments
further develop our partnership working with OfS which includes work to collect and share data to support our funding decisions, understand the financial sustainability of the sector, and manage the Higher Education Innovation Funding programme, including evaluation, to take account of all effective linkages between research and teaching and knowledge exchange and to address government priorities. Alongside OfS, we will work with Jisc, in their capacity as Designated Data Body for England to ensure that we have the sector data we need to deliver our funding and policy interventions
support Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) as it undertakes its review of Higher Education-Business Community Interaction (HE-BCI). Feeding in, alongside the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the other higher education funding bodies of the devolved administrations, on priority areas for the development of knowledge exchange data, metrics, and evidence, and will engage HESA as a key partner in the development of our national capability for improving metrics and evidence
invest in strategic partnerships which enhance and underpin the sector’s research and knowledge exchange activity. This includes:
- contributing to Jisc’s core funding to enable them to invest in the research system’s digital infrastructure, including the provision of critical cybersecurity and network capabilities crucial to collaborative research and the development of open research practices and infrastructure
- evaluating our investment in Universities UK International which enables them to support the sector in developing crucial international research and knowledge exchange collaborations. This will include recently awarded funding of £5 million to support the UK-Ukraine Twinning Initiative, a scheme that will support the needs of the Ukrainian research and innovation needs now as well as the longer-term strategic partnership of both nations
- working with The Conversation to make the findings of research funded by UKRI visible to a wide audience through the mainstream media
work with international partners, for example as co-chairs of the Global Research Council Working Group on Responsible Research Assessment, to embed approaches to assessment that incentivise and reward the diverse attributes of research excellence in support of a healthier research culture

Our budget

Budget category (by financial year)	2022 to 2023 (£ million)	2023 to 2024 (£ million)	2024 to 2025 (£ million)
Core research and innovation budgets and strategic programmes funding	2144.00	2406.00	2503.00
Recurrent grant for research (including contribution to core Higher Education  Innovation Funding)	1715.00	2143.00	2308.00
Specialist institutions	15.00	20.00	25.00
Strategic Programmes funding (including Higher Education Innovation Funding uplift)	414.00	243.00	170.00
Infrastructure	245.00	250.00	313.00
HEInstitution Research Capital England	122.90	118.12	124.95
Higher Education Research Capital England	93.10	106.88	113.05
UK Research Partnership Investment Fund	29.00	25.00	75.00
Department for Education contribution	48.20	TBA	TBA
Recurrent teaching contribution to Higher Education Innovation Funding (attributed to Office for Students)	48.20	TBA	TBA
Total	2437.20	2656.00	2816.00

The figures provided in this document are in line with the 2022 to 2023 and 2024 to 2025 budget allocations for UK Research and Innovation.

These are broken down by our budgeting and reporting categories, and exclude funding for:

official development assistance (ODA)
financial transactions
other government department (OGD) managed programmes

Figures are indicative and may vary over the course of this period due to budget adjustments made as a part of on-going financial management and planning processes to maximise the use of our total funding.

In line with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and the majority of UKRI budgets, all figures published in this table represent the allocations for each financial year. However, due to the role of Research England and the nature of its funding mechanisms, commitments and spend for this council are monitored and reported based on the academic year.

Equivalent funding for the devolved administrations is directly allocated by DSIT.

Existing strategic programmes administered by Research England on behalf of UKRI (by financial year)	2022 to 2023 (£ million)	2023 to 2024 (£ million)	2024 to 2025 (£ million)
Strength in Places Fund	71.36	76.00	62.40

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