Introduction
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is changing the way that we allocate investment to align with government’s research and development (R&D) buckets. This reflects our vital role to ensure public money is invested to deliver our mission to advance knowledge, improve lives and drive growth. It marks the biggest change in how UKRI allocates and manages its portfolio since the organisation was established.
As we implement our new approach to investment, our illustrative schematic of UKRI’s new funding model provides a high-level schematic view. This shows approximately how UKRI’s previous funding lines map to the new model.
It is important to note that this mapping is indicative and does not offer full comparability with the previous approach. This is because UKRI’s new funding model represents a fundamental change in how money flows through UKRI and is invested in research and innovation (R&I).
This page provides guidance on the diagram. It sets out more information on how to read it, key takeaways, and additional context.
More information on our new funding model and a breakdown of UKRI’s allocations for the financial year 2026 to 2027 to the financial year 2029 to 2030 can be found in our allocations explainer, published December 2025.
What is a Sankey diagram?
A Sankey diagram is a type of flow chart that shows how something moves or changes from one set of categories to another. They are read from left to right, showing one or more ‘flows’ from a given category to one or more categories on the right. The flow widths are proportional to their value; in this case, they indicate the funding levels for each line.
In this way, the diagram shows the approximate relationship between the new buckets and the previous funding lines. The many funding lines categorising UKRI’s budget in the financial year 2025 to 2026 are shown on the left. These then flow rightwards into the new framework and buckets that UKRI is using for the financial year 2026 to 2027 and beyond.
How to read the Sankey diagram
Left column (financial year 2025 to 2026 funding lines)
The categories forming a column on the left are the starting funding lines, showing how the total UKRI budget in the financial year 2025 to 2026 was broken down by activity area.
UKRI has not presented allocations data using these funding lines before. Older allocations explainers, such as the 2025 to 2026 explainer and prior instead presented allocations mainly by council, meaning they were shown largely on a disciplinary basis.
Middle column (intermediate categories)
The middle of the diagram approximates how these lines relate to the total financial year 2026 to 2027 UKRI budget with twelve intermediate categories. Many funding lines will see increased investment in financial year 2026 to 2027, which are shown in the diagram as a separate set of flows marked ‘net increases in 2026/27’.
Some of these categories, for example ‘applicant-led research’, can be seen directly in UKRI’s current allocations explainer. However, other categories, including ‘institutes’, ‘infrastructure’ and ‘targeted research and strategic programmes’ are represented in different, blended ways in the explainer. This reflects the fundamental change in UKRI’s new approach to how money flows through the organisation, and helps to illustrate why direct like-for-like comparison is not possible.
Right columns (new UKRI buckets)
Moving rightwards to the next column in the diagram shows how these lines have been translated into the four buckets that UKRI is using moving forward. Three of these are ‘priority buckets’ directed at specific key outcomes. The fourth bucket contains activities that enable and underpin the first three. These four buckets are:
- Curiosity driven research
- Strategic government and societal priorities
- Supporting innovative companies
- Enabling and strengthening UK R&D
In many cases the flow splits. This shows how the main outcome being delivered by each individual investment in a funding line has been considered, and the activity then accordingly moved into its aligned bucket.
UKRI’s current allocations explainer breaks down the total allocation for each bucket over the four financial years from 2026 to 2027 to 2029 to 2030. For example, some activities in bucket two or bucket three also align more specifically to one of UKRI’s new senior responsible owner-led priority programmes. Where this is the case, the allocations explainer shows them against the given investment levels for the industrial strategy growth sectors or wider priorities in bucket two or bucket three.
Finally, the rightmost column shows the percentages of UKRI’s portfolio directed towards the three ‘priority buckets’ in financial year 2026 to 2027: bucket one (50.6%), bucket two (26.7%), and bucket three (22.7%). It shows how the foundational activity in bucket four underpins the three priority buckets proportionately.
Worked example
Starting from the left, the ‘responsive mode research’ line at the top represents the allocation for grants where researchers specify their own ideas for funding without constraint. It shows a combined total allocation of £737 million in financial year 2025 to 2026.
Following the single flow to the middle column shows that all of this allocation is mapped to the financial year 2026 to 2027 ‘applicant-led research’ category, showing an allocation of £815 million. Following this flow further to the right shows that all applicant-led research is part of the ‘curiosity-driven research’ bucket.
Not all of the lines have a straightforward ‘one-to-one’ flow. The diagram shows many funding lines that flow to multiple destinations, for example ‘infrastructure’, demonstrating how mapping across to UKRI’s new more streamlined, outcome-focussed approach is more complex for these types of activity.
Key takeaways
The key takeaways from the diagram are as follows:
- UKRI is fundamentally changing how money flows through the organisation, representing a historic shift in how public money is invested in R&I
- curiosity-driven research remains fundamentally important to UKRI’s mission, and funding for this is protected overall, both in scale and in scope; as well as the increase to applicant-led types of funding where researchers specify their own ideas without constraint, the core quality-related research allocation is also protected
- this approach allows UKRI to aggregate activity in certain sectors that were previously pursued by many councils, either independently or in loose federation, into one place with one programme and one governance arrangement
Important notes on the data
The diagram and figures are illustrative. They have been provided for explanatory purposes and are not a detailed analysis of internal cost codes. A more detailed comparison of previous investment to future allocations would require recoding previous grants and funding lines to this new approach. This would be resource intensive and would still offer only limited comparability, as UKRI’s new funding approach is not a simple reclassification.
Financial year 2025 to 2026 allocation levels
Combined allocation levels across the individual lines in this year differs from UKRI’s total published budget of £8,811 million. This is due to:
- excluding programmes not directly managed by UKRI
- excluding a small proportion of quality-related research funding that has been rephased between financial years (around 3%), which provides the figure on the same basis as financial year 2026 to 2027
‘Other investments’ category
The ‘other investments’ category, shown in the first two columns, includes administrative support and investment in the transformation of UKRI’s systems and processes.