Introduction
This technical guide is aimed at those in planning and finance offices who need to have a good understanding of how Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) Business and Commercialisation supplement (HEIFBC) grants are calculated.
For information about the strategic purpose of our funding refer to How we fund higher education providers (HEPs).
Common principles and definitions are provided in general notes for Research England technical guides.
Eligibility
Refer to the Research England terms and conditions for general eligibility conditions for our funding.
To be eligible for HEIFBC, HEPs must also receive HEIF in the same funding year.
Data used
The three most recent years of the following data from the HESA Higher Education Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey are used to inform the HEIFBC allocations.
Table 1 (Research-related activities):
- total value of contracts with non-SME (Small and medium-sized enterprise) commercial businesses
- total value of contracts with SMEs
Table 2 (Business and community services):
- consultancy income with non-SME commercial businesses
- consultancy income with SMEs
- income from facilities and equipment related services with non-SME commercial businesses
- income from facilities and equipment related services with SMEs
Table 4 (Intellectual property IP):
- total IP revenues
- IP income related to non-software licences with SMEs
- IP income for software licences with SMEs
- other IP income with SMEs
Calculation method
Step 1
The list of HEPs eligible for HEIFBC is obtained from the output of the HEIF funding model.
Step 2
A volume measure is calculated as the sum of eligible income for each respective pot, with relevant weights applied:
- the most recent three years of data is collected from each data source
- in unusual cases where a data point is missing, the most suitable available data is used as a proxy. For instance, where the most recent data is missing, the prior year’s data value would be used instead
- relevant weights are applied: weighting of 3 for SME activity (noting that “Total IP revenues” from table 4 already includes SME income), weightings of 5:3:2 for each year of data are applied respectively, from newest to oldest
Step 3
The HEIFBC budget is distributed to each HEP in proportion to their volume measure from step 2.
Step 4
The conditions specified in Summary of constraints are applied. Any surplus is redistributed only to HEPs not limited by the maximum allocation, in proportion to their volume measure.
Step 5
Step 4 is repeated until the HEIFBC budget is distributed exactly.
Summary of constraints
The following constraints currently apply to the HEIFBC allocations:
- a minimum allocation of £200,000
- a maximum allocation of £1,016,000