Introduction
This data quality statement sets out the accuracy, reliability and completeness of the information published in the UKRI investment and outputs (IAO) April 2015 to March 26 statistical release. It is based on the 2 April 2026 snapshot of Databank, UKRI’s central repository of administrative data, and is intended to help users understand the strengths, limitations and appropriate uses of the data available as of this date.
Administrative data is collected primarily to support operational processes (for example, managing applications or accurately distributing funding to different organisations) rather than for analytical purposes. Such data provides a rich and cost‑effective source of information for research and policy development and reduces the burden of additional data collection on individuals and organisations. However, because it is not gathered with analysis as the primary purpose, some attributes may be incomplete or missing, particularly where they are not essential to operational workflows.
Databank brings together data on applications and awards from a range of decision-making processes, including formal funding opportunities, block awards allocated through algorithms, and other mechanisms such as subscriptions, facilities and institutes. It also includes loan funding, currently available only from Innovate UK. Databank holds information on funding decision owners and funders across the seven UKRI research councils, Research England, Innovate UK and all UKRI funds. For this analysis, records with missing decision owner, funder or essential dates are excluded unless otherwise specified. Data relating to managed programmes administered by UKRI on behalf of other government departments are included in the data and, where known, identified for the IAO analysis.
Output data from Databank was re-snapshotted on 21 May 2026 to address a gap identified during the production of the IAO following the 2 April 2026 snapshot.
The IAO also uses some data that is currently not available in Databank. The additional datasets used are:
- output data for Innovate UK projects between 2017 to 2018 and 2025 to 2026
- Innovate UK project partner co-investment data
- Research England application data for years 2018 to 2026
- Research England’s block grants, which are taken from the already published research England data
The section on additional datasets addresses the statement of quality of these extra datasets.
This data quality statement does not assess opportunity level data because it has not been previously possible to identify this information reliably. This data will be reviewed to decide whether it is possible to add opportunity‑level reporting in future versions of this document.
Overall UKRI data quality statement
The following considerations are across the entire April 2015 to March 2026 dataset.
A material number of records (see subset sections for specific figures) lack essential information such as dates which prevent assignment to a financial year or do not have an identified decision owner or funder. To avoid misrepresenting UKRI activity, these records have been excluded from the publication.
Project partner data for research projects is only available as planned at the application stage or as reported as collaborations at output collection.
UKRI has either excluded or not yet collected outputs for approximately 23% of awards (this is without considering Research England or Innovate UK awards and their outputs). This is partly attributable to the natural lag in output reporting for more recent awards.
For both organisations and people records, UKRI does not have unique identifiers across all its constituent systems. This means that organisations and people may be identified as different when they are in fact the same. Therefore, any counting of unique organisations and people is likely to be overestimated. Work underway in 2026 is expected to significantly reduce these issues for future data. Retrospective improvements will also be considered alongside other organisational priorities.
Over the 11 years in scope, there have been changes in systems and processes that affect the quality and consistency of the data. Older application and award data may be less complete or consistent.
Spend data coverage within Databank does not currently provide a complete representation of UKRI’s research and innovation investments. This gap will be addressed through a planned programme of work during financial year 2026 to 2027, with the aim of extending Databank to encompass all finance systems and therefore enable comprehensive analysis and reporting of UKRI investment spend.
When reporting on the number of individuals supported by UKRI funding, figures are based on data captured at the point of application. For roles where individuals are named at application stage, each person can be counted accurately. However, for roles where individuals are not yet appointed at the time of application (for example, postdoctoral researchers or research technicians), the system records these as “unnamed” positions.
In Databank, at time of data preparation for IAO reporting purposes, because of a technical issue multiple unnamed individuals with the same role on an award are aggregated into a single record. As a result, current reporting undercounts the total number of people supported in these roles, as it only fully reflects those who were named at the point of application. This is a known data limitation which has subsequently been fixed in Databank since data preparation for the IAO analysis.
The following sections provide more detail.
Subsets of data for the IAO
The IAO analysis is based on a series of clearly defined subsets of data, each representing a specific set of records (such as applications, awards or studentships) that meet consistent criteria within the period 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2026.
A subset is defined by both:
- a type of item (for example, application, award, output)
- a specific event or date relevant to that item (for example, application received, decision made, award start)
Because different stages of the funding lifecycle are recorded at different times and with different levels of completeness, no single dataset can meet all statistical reporting needs. The IAO therefore uses multiple subsets, each tailored to a specific analytical question. As a result, figures across subsets should not be directly compared unless explicitly stated. Each subset is optimised for a specific analytical purpose and should be interpreted within that context.
This data quality statement is organised according to these subsets, as they form the basis of the statistics presented in the IAO. The subsets are:
- Applications: an application is either a response to an opportunity or a request to UKRI which expects funding to result from it. Any application known to be received within the date range is included in this subset.
- Funding decisions: a decision is an application which has had a decision on whether to be funded. Any decision known to be made within the date range is included in this subset.
- Awarded decisions: a subset of the funding decisions with only those that were successful.
- Active awards: an active award is a funded decision which had a start date before the end of the date range, and an end date after the start of the date range.
- Outputs: outputs for any awards with decision date within the date range are included in this subset. The date used to subset outputs has changed from last year where the start date of the award was used, this is to improve consistency of the base of analysis with awarded decisions.
- Active studentships: a studentship is funding to a student provided by a higher education provider and linked to a UKRI training grant. Any studentship active within the date range is included in this subset.
- Submitted studentship PhDs: any studentship with a PhD submitted date in the date range is included in this subset.
Additional datasets are not a separate subset of data but are used to complement the data in the above subsets. Their quality statements are separate as they come from different sources.
Applications data
Applications definition
The UKRI Investment and Output publication defines an application using underlying Databank records. In this context, an application refers to any process through which a UKRI funding decision could be made. This includes traditional applications submitted to an opportunity, as well as decision processes driven by algorithms (for example, for certain block awards) or other non-standard decision methods.
For this publication, initial application stages (such as outlines or expressions of interest) are not counted as applications, as the data does not reliably link these early stages to subsequent full applications and this can lead to double counting. For Innovate UK there is an initial stage where an application that has been submitted with content or terms that are in contravention with the rules specified in the published competition guidance, will be removed prior to assessments; 18,065 of these types of records have been excluded from this analysis and from the IAO.
Cases for these exclusions include applications:
- which start outside of published parameters or planned for a duration outside of the specified time frame
- which submit project costs or grant requests outside of the parameters of the guidance
- which calculate a percentage of their costs outside of published parameters
- where aims and objectives are deemed to be incompatible with the aims of the competition
- where content falls below an assessable threshold (that is single word or sentence answers where complex information is expected) or contravene published rules for resubmitting ideas in earlier competitions
Additionally, applications for further funding on the same project (such as costed extensions) are treated as separate applications unless an explicit data link between parts exists.
Applications are assigned to a financial year based on the date the final version was received by UKRI. Applications with no recorded date are excluded.
Where an application lists multiple organisations, the characteristics of the lead organisation are used for statistical breakdowns. For financial figures such as total applied for, the sum total is used.
Application figures
Out of 292,363 applications identified in Databank, 1,664 (1%) are excluded because they are an outline stage of an application, 44,345 (15%) are excluded because they do not have a recorded application date. These exclusions disproportionately affect applications where Innovate UK and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) are the decision owner, accounting for 44% and 31% of the excluded applications respectively.
For Innovate UK, the missing date issue stems from historical data that was batch extracted from legacy systems, where submission dates were not captured because they were not required for operational processes. This issue does not apply to applications submitted from 2017 to 2018 onwards, following the introduction of the Innovation Funding System, which records application dates consistently.
For BBSRC and other decision owners, the underlying causes of the data gaps include migration of data between systems locking data for edit, plus initial requirements gathering when defining data systems.
Except for applications received in 2025 to 2026, we exclude a further 719 applications that do not have a decision owner and cannot be attributed to a specific part of UKRI. 5,623 applications received in 2025 to 2026 with unknown decision owners are counted because they are a result of known lags in the data processing systems. The inclusion of these applications will be reviewed in future publications.
After these exclusions, the application subset includes 245,635 applications suitable for publication.
As previously noted, Databank is sourced from operational systems and there remains a possibility of some duplication. These are continuously monitored and reviewed by Databank, and any corrections are expected to be small and will be incorporated into future releases.
In addition to missing dates, there are several other limitations in the applications data to consider.
| Limitations | Number of affected applications |
|---|---|
| Last‑received application date that occurs after the decision date | 813 |
| Missing or zero “amount applied for” total | 6,026 |
| 2023 to 2024 amount from missing or zero “amount applied for” | 826 |
| 2024 to 2025 amount from missing or zero “amount applied for” | 810 |
| 2025 to 2026 amount from missing or zero “amount applied for” | 963 |
| Total missing application status (Successful/Unsuccessful/In progress) | 7,240 |
| 2023 to 2024 missing application status (Successful/Unsuccessful/In progress) | 1086 |
| 2024 to 2025 Missing application status (Successful/Unsuccessful/In progress) | 750 |
| 2025 to 2026 Missing application status (Successful/Unsuccessful/In progress) | 5,380 |
| Total missing application category | 242 |
| Missing application category from the Funding Service | 234 |
To address gaps in application category data, the UKRI Funding Service plans to introduce an improved data‑capture process during opportunity setup, beginning in 2026. As part of this work, they will undertake requirements gathering and determine the expected level of completeness for this field going forward.
Funding decisions data
Funding decisions definition
The UKRI investment and outputs (IAO) publication defines a UKRI decision as the agreement to either fund or not fund a project. In this context, a decision reflects any process through which a funding outcome is reached, whether through a competitive opportunity or through direct awards driven by algorithms (for example, block awards) or other non-standard decision routes.
Initial stages of an application, such as outlines or expressions of interest, are not treated as decisions within this publication, as these stages are not reliably linked to subsequent full applications and their inclusion could result in double counting. For Innovate UK there is an initial stage where an application that has been submitted with content or terms that are in contravention with the rules specified in the published competition guidance will be removed prior to assessments; 18,065 of these types of records have been excluded from this analysis and from the IAO.
Decisions relating to additional funding on the same project (such as costed extensions) are treated as separate decisions unless an explicit data link between parts exists.
Decisions are assigned to a financial year based on the recorded decision date. Decisions with no decision date are excluded.
Where a decision involves multiple organisations, a lead organisation is identified. The characteristics of this lead organisation are used for statistical breakdowns, except for financial figures such as the amount applied for, where the total reflects the sum submitted by all organisations involved.
Funding decision figures
Out of 330,372 decisions identified in Databank, 1,664 (1%) are excluded because they are an outline stage of an application. 80,835 (25%) are excluded because they do not have a recorded decision date. These exclusions are disproportionately associated with decisions where the Medical Research Council (MRC), Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), BBSRC or Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is the decision owner, accounting for 68,124 of the excluded decisions; these represent 48% of their decisions. For these and other decision owners, the underlying causes of the data gaps include migration of data between systems locking data for edit, plus initial requirements gathering when defining data systems.
Except for decisions made in 2025 to 2026, a further 761 decisions are excluded because they do not have a recorded decision owner. However, 2,753 decisions from 2025 to 2026 with an unknown decision owner are included, as these arise from known lags in data processing systems. Their inclusion may affect individual decision owner award rates and will be reviewed in future releases.
Following these exclusions, the decision subset comprises 247,112 decisions suitable for publication.
In addition to missing dates and decision owners, there are several other limitations in the decisions data that users should consider.
| Limitations | Number of affected applications |
|---|---|
| Decision date that occurs before the last-received date | 810 |
| Total missing or zero “amount applied for” | 9,642 |
| Missing or zero “amount applied for” from 2015 to 2016 | 2,634 |
| Missing or zero “amount applied for” average from other years | 701 |
| Total missing country for lead organisation | 37,870 |
| Missing country for lead organisation from 2020 to 2021 | 12,388 |
| Missing country for lead organisation average from other years | 2,548 |
| Total missing postcode for lead organisation | 22,006 |
| Missing postcode for lead organisation from 2020 to 2021 | 10,877 |
| Missing postcode for lead organisation average from other years | 1,113 |
In 2026, UKRI is advancing its efforts to enhance the quality and completeness of organisational data. As this data becomes available, Databank will integrate it accordingly, which will help minimise instances of missing country information in future datasets. Retrospective work will be considered alongside other requirements.
The Open Access Block Grant data in the IAO publication is reallocated to financial years to reflect the annual nature of the Open Access Block Grant awards, which run from 1 April each year, even if the underlaying decision dates show the dates of the funding processing which may diverge slightly from these.
Innovate UK unsuccessful decisions from applications prior to 2017 to 2018 are not available. This arises from the way Innovate UK’s application data was processed before the development of the Innovation Funding System prior to 2017 to 2018.
Awarded funding decisions data
Awarded funding decisions definition
As defined in the previous section, a decision is the agreement to either fund or not fund an application. This subset covers only those decisions that resulted in a successful outcome and became awards within the relevant date range.
Awarded funding decisions figures
Of the 73,857 successful decisions available in Databank, 880 of them are excluded due to a missing decision date, and an additional 392 are removed because the funder is not recorded. However, 395 successful decisions from 2025 to 2026 with an unknown funder are included, as these arise from known lags in data processing systems. Their inclusion will be reviewed in future publications.
Following these exclusions, the successful decisions subset comprises 72,585 decisions suitable for publication.
There are several other limitations in the successful decisions data that users should consider.
4,301 out of 72,585 successful decisions have an applied amount of £0 but an awarded amount greater than £0. For example, 15% (651 from a total of 4,346) of successful decisions classified as Training Grants fall into this category. Similar patterns are seen in other schemes, including Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (15%, 496 out of 3,226) and Vouchers (81%, 1,106 out of 1,372).
7,673 out of 72,585 distinct relationships between project partner and award by year do not have an inputted value (cash or in-kind).
Project partner contribution data is collected at the point of application for research funding. Therefore, UKRI only has information on the planned relationship and planned contributions between the research applicants and their intended project partners. There is no information on the subsequently agreed or realised actual contribution made by project partners.
The project partner research data collected is an estimate, made by the applicants, of the value in cash or in-kind that the project partner is expected to provide. In many cases no value, or a very low value, is entered by applicants, possibly indicating that there is large uncertainty about the likely value of direct or in-kind contributions at the time of application.
Project partner contribution estimates are not audited, and the actual contributions may be different from those reported.
Project partner data gaps stem from the historical development of UKRI source systems and the subsequent focus on introducing a unique organisation identifier. For example, organisation type information is missing for 6,722 of the 6,899 distinct project partner organisations sourced from the Funding Service. This issue is expected to be resolved for new data going forward.
Active awards data
Active awards definition
The UKRI investment and outputs publication defines an award as a successful decision to fund a project through one or more organisations. An active award is an award which had an end date after 1 April 2015 and a start date before 1 April 2026. In this context, an award reflects any process through which a funding outcome is reached, whether through a competitive opportunity or through direct awards driven by algorithms (for example, block awards) or other non-standard decision routes.
Awards relating to additional funding on the same project (such as costed extensions) are treated as separate awards unless an explicit data link between parts exists.
Awards with no start and end date are excluded.
Where an award involves multiple organisations, a lead organisation is identified. The characteristics of this lead organisation are used for statistical breakdowns, except for financial figures such as the funded amount and spend where the total reflects the sum submitted by all organisations involved, the start date which is the earliest date of all participant organisations, and the end date which is the latest date of all participant organisations. Awards that change one or more organisations within their life are counted as a single award.
Counts of organisations and people include all of those that are related to the award.
The funder of each award is the main budget holder of the initial funding.
The funded amount of an award is the total UKRI committed amount with indexation applied, where indexation is defined as an additional cost added to adjust for effects of future inflation. The spend of an award includes UKRI award scheduled payments and reconciliations to date. Sanctions are currently excluded but will be considered in future publications.
Active awards figures
Out of 91,195 active awards identified in Databank, 1,957 are excluded because they have a missing start and end date. A further 564 awards are excluded because the funder is not recorded. However, 642 awards from 2025-26 with an unknown funder are included, as these arise from known lags in data processing systems. Their inclusion will be reviewed in future publications.
After these exclusions, the active awards subset includes 88,674 awards suitable for publication.
| Limitations | Number of affected applications | Total number of awards |
|---|---|---|
| Awards with zero funded amount | 1,848 | 88,674 |
| Awards with zero funded amount from MRC | 1,302 | 8,623 |
| Awards with zero spend recorded | 16,722 | 88,674 |
| People records without a unique identifier | 3,567 | 380,958 |
| Distinct organisations with an unknown SME status for Innovate UK active awards | 859 | 23,231 |
| Distinct organisations without a recorded country | 3,444 | 24,215 |
| Distinct UK organisations with missing ITL (international territorial level) | 555 | 20,527 |
| Distinct UK organisations with missing ITL which have a missing postcode | 72 | 555 |
| Distinct organisations without a type | 635 | 24,215 |
There is a possibility of duplicates in the data; these are continuously being reviewed by Databank, and any data corrections will be reflected in subsequent publications.
Spend data coverage within Databank does not currently provide a complete representation of UKRI’s research and innovation investments. This gap will be addressed through a planned programme of work during financial year 2026 to 2027, with the aim of extending Databank to encompass all finance systems and therefore enable comprehensive analysis and reporting of UKRI investment spend.
Outputs data
Outputs definition
As of May 2025, the seven research councils all collect output data using a service provided by Elsevier. The most recent annual output collection exercise concluded in March 2026. The latest data collection will be available for the UKRI Investment and Output publication but the data validation exercise that was done in April and any late submissions won’t be included. This data is reported by UKRI award holders, linked to active UKRI awards and awards that have terminated in the last five years.
The UKRI Investment and Output publication defines research and innovation outputs as any outputs collected for awards with a decision date at or after 1 April 2015 and before 1 April 2026.
As defined in the awards data section, an award is a successful decision to fund a project through one or more organisations. Where an award funds multiple organisations, it is counted as a single award but information from all organisations is used for statistical breakdowns. Awards that change one or more organisations within their life are counted as a single award.
Awards relating to additional funding on the same project (such as costed extensions) are treated as separate awards unless an explicit data link between parts exists.
An output claimed by several awards is counted as one output if it has the same unique output identifier.
Outputs figures
Out of 73,845 available awards identified in Databank, 880 are excluded because they do not have a recorded decision date, and 31,411 are excluded because they are managed by Innovate UK and are discussed separately as the data comes from Innovate UK’s collection processes. See Additional data sets and Annex A – Innovate UK Outputs.
A further 392 awards are excluded because the funder is not recorded. However, 11 awards from 2025 to 2026 with an unknown funder are included, as these arise from known lags in data processing systems. Their inclusion will be reviewed in future publications.
After these exclusions, the outputs subset includes 41,162 awards suitable for publication, of which 31,657 were eligible to get outputs information through the Elsevier collection process. It is important to note that recent awards (within the last 6 to 12 months) are not included in the annual exercise to collect research outputs. In addition, other exclusions may be applied (for example, if the principal investigator is not available to report outputs), and not all surveyed awards report outputs.
There are several other limitations in the outputs data that users should consider.
Awards:
- 970 awards (out of 41,162 awards in outputs subset) have a missing or zero awarded amount
- 412 awards (out of 31,657 awards deemed eligible for outputs data collection) have a missing or zero awarded amount
UKRI output types:
- output presence depends on the type of output (see table 4)
- awards funding multiple organisations sometimes report the same output for each organisation which results in duplicates in the data. For all types of outputs, between 1% and 2% of them are duplicated. For collaboration outputs, this figure is 10%
- dates for publication/production of outputs can be inconsistent with start and end date of their corresponding awards. For example, 1,578 publications have a publication year at a date which is before the decision date of the award they are linked to, and 592 research tools and methods have a year of production which is earlier than the decision date of the award they are linked to
- 2,396 collaboration outputs do not have a recorded country of collaboration
- 13,654 collaboration outputs do not have a recorded sector of collaboration
- duplications may occur when different researchers have entered similar information independently of one another
- publications may occur from more than one award
- collaborator organisations do not have a unique identifier and are only available by their name. Any analysis requiring further information on the organisations (for example, location) may be affected as we are not able to verify the linking methodology
- 77,429 publication outputs do not have a Digital Object Identifier (DOI); however they are uniquely identified internally
- the spin-outs data has been excluded from the data quality statement, as well as from the IAO, as it is currently undergoing an assessment to determine its completeness, representativeness, and comparability with other published sources
- 3,150 collaboration outputs were not attributed to their corresponding awards. This is a result of a synchronisation error in the data processing from the Elsevier source data
- Innovate UK outputs were provided separately
- outputs data is not available for Research England awards in a form that can be included in the UKRI Investment and Output publication
| Types of output | Number of eligible awards | Number of distinct outputs |
|---|---|---|
| Artistic creative | 4,067 | 17,038 |
| Collaboration | 18,069 | 74,407 |
| Research models and databases | 9466 | 44336 |
| Engagement activities | 19,364 | 285,997 |
| Further funding | 14,741 | 51,881 |
| Intellectual property | 1,452 | 2,122 |
| Medical products, interventions and clinical trials | 742 | 1,029 |
| Publications | 25,645 | 561,777 |
| Research tools and methods | 5,725 | 10,898 |
| Software and technical products | 3,928 | 9,073 |
Active studentships data
Definition of active studentships
The UKRI Investment and Output publication defines a studentship as the provision of funding for postgraduate research where the funding was provided by UKRI to a higher education provider who, in turn, allocated the funding to the studentship. An active studentship is a studentship which had an end date after 1 April 2015 and a start date before 1 April 2026. If a studentship does not have a studentship identifier, it is not counted.
The funder of each studentship is the budget holder of the awards associated to the studentship.
Studentship data from October 2025 onwards is not available for analysis because the Siebel data system containing studentships was decommissioned. Until the new Studentship Data Portal is in place and data is modelled, data in the central system will be static. This is expected to be resolved in future publications.
Active studentship figures
Out of 82,578 studentships identified in Databank, two are excluded for a missing start and end date. A further 576 studentships are excluded because the funder is not recorded. There are no studentships with an unknown funder and a start date of 2025 to 2026.
After these exclusions, the active studentships subset includes 82,000 studentships suitable for publication.
In addition to missing dates and funders, there are several other limitations in the studentships data that users should consider:
- 14 organisations do not have a unique identifier, from a total of 82,000 organisation records. After excluding those without an identifier, a total of 147 distinct organisations remain
- 9 organisations do not have ITL1 regional data
- 4 organisations do not have a recorded postcode
Studentship doctorate submissions data
Studentship doctorate submissions data definition
As defined in the section on Active studentships, a studentship is the provision of funding for postgraduate research where the funding was provided by UKRI to a higher education provider who, in turn, allocated the funding to the studentship. This subset covers only those studentships that can be linked to a PhD Submission Survey response.
Studentships are assigned to a financial year based on the recorded PhD submission date. Studentships with no recorded date are excluded.
Studentship PhD submissions data for the UKRI Investment and Output publication are collected via the PhD Submission Survey. This survey collects the thesis submission and completion of degree data for PhD students who were due to submit by the preceding September.
Students whose details on the system indicate termination of studies during the first 12 months of their training or had less than 12 months funding are omitted from the survey. There are 15 studentships with a PhD Submission Survey response that cannot be linked to their studentship data. There are 37,594 studentships with an end date equal or prior to 2025 to 2026 that do not have a PhD Submission Survey response.
Studentship data from October 2025 onwards is not available for analysis because the Siebel data system containing studentships was decommissioned. Until the new Studentship Data Portal is in place and data is modelled, data in the central system will be static. This resolution is expected to be resolved in future publications.
Studentship doctorate submissions data figures
Out of 57,868 studentships identified in Databank that have been linked to a PhD Submission Survey response, 11,146 are excluded because of a missing PhD submission date. Of that figure 7,811 are due to delayed submissions or students that will not submit, and 3,287 for which the reason for non-submission is not available. A further 425 studentships are excluded because the funder is not recorded. There are no studentships with an unknown funder and a submission date of 2025 to 2026.
After these exclusions, the studentship doctorate submissions subset includes 46,297 studentships suitable for publication.
In addition to missing dates and funders, users should consider the following limitations in the studentships data:
- time taken to do a PhD can change due to personal circumstances and processing or collection delays may cause lags in the submissions being communicated to UKRI
- from a total of 46,297 organisations, there are 133 distinct organisations, of which 8 do not have ITL1 regional data and 9 do not have a recorded associated country
Additional datasets
Innovate UK output data
It contains data collected with the Project Completion Form (PCF) which has output information from April 2017 to March 2026. It also contains data collected with the Impact Management Framework (IMF) from 2023 to 2024 onwards.
A statement on the quality of this data is included in Annex A.
Innovate UK project partner co-investment data
The data for this statement has been extracted and collated from Innovate UK’s system records and is a faithful and accurate representation of the data as we have it.
Research England data
This is data provided by Research England for April 2018 to March 2026. Prior data is not available because Research England was only formed on 1 April 2018. Data from April 2018 to March 2025 has not been updated compared to what was previously published.
Annex A: Innovate UK outputs
Project completion form (PCF) data
It contains outputs data for Innovate UK from April 2017 to March 2026. Data prior to 2017 to 2019 is incomplete.
Each project participant is requested to complete a project completion form (PCF) at the end of a project. The PCF has been collecting data since 2017, therefore this data does not cover all Innovate UK grants. Most competitions launched after April 2023 use the alternative Impact Management Framework. Participants in these competitions do not fill in PCFs.
The PCF responses have been mapped to project numbers and participants, improving the quality of the data and analysis we can conduct. There are small differences in how the analysis has been conducted this year, including improvements in the approach to both mapping and analysis which may result in some inconsistencies between data presented last year and this year as some errors were found and rectified.
Caveats against specific data are highlighted in the following notes on output types column.
Total awards
Question from PCF: based on project number provided
This list includes all participants of Innovate UK projects that we have a PCF response for. As the PCF came into existence in 2017, this includes projects that finished on or after 1 January 2017. Note that this is all PCF records, not all grants ever issued by Innovate UK, also note that not all award holders will have completed a PCF.
Collaborations
We do not have data on collaborations that occurred as a result of the project – we only have data on collaborators funded at project award. As such, we have omitted this.
Knowledge generation
Question from PCF: Q35 * How many new academic publications have been developed as a result of participation in this project? Please enter ‘0’ if no publications have been planned or produced. Please provide title(s) and DOI number(s) where relevant
These are academic only questions so aren’t completed by businesses. The DOI number was extracted from the free text field and run through the UnPayWall tool.
Spin-outs
Questions from PCF: Q36 * Has involvement in this project increased the possibility of an academic spin-out being formed?
PCFs filtered by response “Yes, created”
Q37 Please provide the company name and CRN.
Where CRNs were provided these were extracted and incorporation date obtained from Companies House. Many more responses indicated that they had created a spin-out but did not provide CRNs or a company name. CRNs were looked up in the Transparency data, some were listed as participants for the projects.
Further funding planned
Questions from PCF
Q51 How much additional funding in total do you expect to spend on this R&D and for how long?
The PCF requests information on further funding planned and further funding secured, both of which have been provided here. The PCF does not request detail of specific funders, only how the future R&D will be funded (for example, internal funds, private external fund, public funding). The amount required is an approximation across all funding streams.
Q52 How are you planning on financing this R&D? (multiple choice)
Further funding secured
Questions from PCF: Q66 As a result of your participation in this project, has your organisation been able to raise further funds, in addition to the match funding? (Multiple Choice)
The PCF does not request detail of specific funders, only how the future R&D will be funded (for example, internal funds, private external fund, public funding). The amount required is an approximation across all funding streams.
Q67 You indicated you did receive further funding, please specify the total value of this funding. – Value of funding (£ Sterling)
Products, processes and services
Questions from PCF: Q42 Do you expect to introduce any new products, services or processes as a result of this project?
Question asks for a timeline of when this is expected to be introduced. Responses of “Never” and “Don’t know” were filtered out.
FTE jobs
Questions from PCF: Q57 * Please state how many FTE jobs were retained in your organisation as a result of participation in this project?
Retained jobs as a result of the project. Caution is urged here as there are some extreme anomalies – one project (102613) claims 37,000 jobs were retained as a result of the project which is highly unrealistic. Suggest a cap is put on this field, we have previously used 10 jobs per PCF response as a ceiling.
Q58 * Please state how many FTE jobs were created in your organisation as a result of participation in this project?
Created jobs as a result of the project. Caution is urged here as there are some extreme anomalies – one project (102613) claims 37,000 jobs were retained as a result of the project which is highly unrealistic. Suggest a cap is put on this field.
Intellectual property
Questions from PCF:
- Q31 Did your organisation have the rights to use any required IP for this project?
- Q32 Where did this IP originate?
- Q33 What stage are you at regarding the protection of the IP used on this project and are you considering protecting IP with any other organisations involved in the project?
- Q34 Please provide any relevant patent numbers, separated by commas
The way the PCF asks about IP in this and preceding questions does not allow us to distinguish between IP created as a result of the project, and IP used in the project. The individual IP numbers would need validating against the participant’s name to confirm this.
Impact Management Framework (IMF) data
It contains outputs data for Innovate UK collected from 2023 to 2024 onwards.
This is the second year that we are including IMF data collected via the Project Impact questions.
Project Impact data went live in June 2023, collecting impact data from applicants of new competitions. Project Impact replaces the PCF, so no organisation will be requested to submit both PCF and Project Impact data. Note that not all Innovate UK products or programmes use Project Impact, due to specific technical restrictions, it being a managed programme or having alternative methodologies for tracking impact.
Project Impact data is collected throughout the application and project lifecycle, from each organisation applying for and receiving support from Innovate UK. Each programme includes a core set of Innovate UK impact metrics, then adds a unique mix of impact metrics which track the specific objectives of that programme.
Caveats when using Innovate UK impact tracking data
Current data quality score: good
Data is largely accurate and usable with only minor issues needing attention. Standard checks are in place to remove duplicates, correct inconsistencies and query with respondent suspicious data.
Data quality can be improved by:
- reviewing the distribution of the data to identify and account for potential outliers
- verifying the accuracy of responses with the organisation and comparing to other data sources
Limitations and uncertainties
Data is self-reported by recipient organisations and have not been independently verified. Reported figures may be subject to optimism bias or differing interpretations of metrics.
It can be difficult to isolate Innovate UK’s contribution for metrics which are ‘as a result of Innovate UK support’. Impact tracking data is not a substitution for a counterfactual.
Impact data doesn’t cover all impacts of a programme. The data should be used with other data sources, for example evaluations, to form a complete picture of a programme’s impact.
Expected impacts are estimates and may be influenced by interpretation, optimism bias and external factors. They should be viewed as indicative only and not as accurate forecasts.
Impact tracking data contains commercially sensitive information. As standard practice, individual organisations should not be identifiable.
Context
Impact tracking data collection went live for in scope programmes in August 2023, from organisations directly applying for or receiving Innovate UK support.
This dataset represents a subset of Innovate UK’s portfolio and does not capture all supported organisations. Currently KTP, business growth and support managed outside of the funding platform are out of scope of impact data collection.
Impact tracking data is collected before, during and after the support because impacts can take years to fully materialise.
The data is collected via an online form, is quantitative and rarely includes free text questions.
Impact tracking data scoring
The overall quality rating for the full data set is:
- Q2 April to June 2025: Fair
- Q3 July to September 2025: Fair
- Q4 October to December 2025: Good
- Q1 January to March 2026: Good
Rating descriptions:
- Poor – data is unreliable, inconsistent or incomplete, unsuitable for confident analysis or reporting
- Fair – data has moderate quality issues, usable for limited purposes but needs cleaning or caution in interpretation
- Good – data is largely accurate and usable with only minor issues needing attention
- Excellent – data is highly reliable, complete and consistent, ready for reporting and decision making with minimal cleaning
Table 5: detailed breakdown of the data scoring
| Data measurement | Description of measurement | Q2 2025: April to June | Q3 2025: July to September | Q4 2025: October to December | Q1 2026: January to March |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accuracy | Data reflects organisation and project impacts | Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair |
| Completeness | All required metrics are populated | Good | Good | Good | Good |
| Consistency | Data values are consistent across metrics | Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair |
| Timeliness | Data reflects the stage of the project | Good | Good | Good | Good |
| Validity | Data is in the correct format and type | Good | Good | Good | Good |
| Uniqueness | Correct applicant/participant and no duplicates | Poor | Fair | Good | Good |
| Integrity | Relationships between IM and other Innovate UK data tables | Fair | Good | Good | Good |
Project impact type outputs
The following includes the output types and the notes on the project impact.
Total awards
Question from project impact: All Project Participants which have Project Impact data collection, excluding Withdrawal, Pending, On Hold participants, and projects which are currently On Hold or have been Terminated.
Note that this is all project participants, not just those that have provided us with completed Project Impact data at project closure.
Grant offered
Question from project impact: The amount of grant which was offered to the Participant, within the Grant Offer Letter.
Grant claimed
Question from project impact: The amount of grant that the Participant has claimed for to date.
Project end date
Question from project impact: The current project end date.
Project status
Question from project impact: The current status of the project.
Closure impact data
Question from project impact: The status of Project Impact data collection at project closure, meaning project end date.
A request for closure Project Impact data is requested the day after the project end date. Some projects have not yet reached their end date, so no closure data is available.
IN-2023-3 – New collaborations as a result of this support
Question from project impact: New collaborations as a result of this support.
As a result of this Innovate UK support, how many new collaborations have you made with external organisations in the last 12 months?
Mandatory impact metric so included in all Innovate UK programmes/products which include impact data collection. Asked at Inflight (during the project), Project Closure and Post Project Closure.
IN-2023-22 – Number of papers as a result of this support
Question from project impact: Number of papers as a result of this support.
As a result of this Innovate UK support, how many academic papers, industry reports, white papers, trader papers or conference papers have you or your organisation published in the last 12 months?
Optional impact metric so only included if selected by a programme. Mandatory for all granting funding programmes / products. Asked at Inflight (during the project), Project Closure and Post Project Closure
IN-2023-9 – New patents designs trademarks or copyrights as a result of this support
Question from project impact: New patents, designs, trademarks or copyrights as a result of this support.
As a result of this Innovate UK support, has you or your organisation submitted, been granted or protected any patents, designs, trademarks or copyrights in the last 12 months?
Optional impact metric so only included if selected by a programme. Mandatory for all granting funding programmes and products. Asked at Inflight (during the project), Project Closure and Post Project Closure.
EC-2023-5 – Private funding as a result of this support
Question from project impact: Private funding as a result of this support.
As a result of this Innovate UK support, estimate the total value of any private funding you have received in the last 12 months?
Mandatory impact metric so included in all Innovate UK programmes and products which include impact data collection.
Asked at Inflight (during the project), Project Closure and Post Project Closure.
Private Funding CAP at £2m
Question from project impact: In line with the approach used with the PCF data, the maximum amount of private funding has been capped at £2 million.
EC-2023-6 – Public sector funding as a result of this support
Question from project impact: Public sector funding as a result of this support. As a result of this Innovate UK support, estimate the total value of any further public sector funding you have received in the last 12 months?
Optional impact metric so only included if selected by a programme. Asked at Inflight (during the project), Project Closure and Post Project Closure.
EC-2023-7 – Funding from overseas as a result of this support
Question from project impact: Funding from overseas as a result of this support. As a result of this Innovate UK support, what percentage of the total funding received in the last 12 months came from overseas?
Optional impact metric so only included if selected by a programme. Asked at Inflight (during the project), Project Closure and Post Project Closure
EC-2023-3 – Number of FTE employees as a result of this support
Question from project impact: Number of FTE employees as a result of this support. As a result of this Innovate UK support, how many more or less Full Time Equivalent (FTE) employees are in your business today compared to 12 months ago?
Mandatory impact metric so included in all Innovate UK programmes and products which include impact data collection. Asked at Inflight (during the project), Project Closure and Post Project Closure.
FTE Cap at 10 FTE
Question from project impact: In line with the approach used with on other data sources, the maximum number of FTE employees has been capped at 10.
IN-2023-16 – Expected new products, services or processes as a result of this support
Question from project impact: Expected new products, services or processes as a result of this support As a result of this Innovate UK support, does your business expect to launch any new or significantly improved products, services or processes?
Optional impact metric so only included if selected by a programme. Mandatory for all granting funding programmes and products. Asked at Inflight (during the project), Project Closure and Post Project Closure.