March 14, 2022

expert reaction to UK government’s announcement of 2022-2025 R&D budget

The government has announced plans for the largest ever research and development budget.

James Wilsdon, Director of the Research on Research Institute (RoRI) and Digital Science Professor of Research Policy at the University of Sheffield said: 

“Today’s breakdown by BEIS of its R&D allocations, totalling almost £40 billion, provides us with a welcome layer of extra detail on how extra investment will be spent, and at what rate, over the three years of the Spending Review. UKRI’s numbers will attract the greatest attention, as these account for the largest share of the total. Here budgets rise modestly next year, before a larger boost of nearly £500m in 2023-24—with the lion’s share of this extra cash going to support business R&D through Innovate UK. 

“Two big-ticket items sit outside UKRI’s current allocation. The first is the £6.8 billion set aside for UK association to Horizon Europe. If association proves impossible, or is interminably delayed, then UKRI will presumably need to step in as the delivery vehicle for any “Plan B”—bringing with it the double-edged sword of a big budget boost, plus the complex task of reassembling the broken jigsaw of UK-EU collaboration. 

“The second is new R&D investments from the ODA budget, which should start rising again from 2023. With the closure of the Global Challenges and Newton Funds confirmed, it’s not yet clear how any successor R&D programmes will be administered, but it seems reasonable to expect UKRI to play a central role. So in a “Plan B + new ODA” scenario, UKRI’s budget could end up substantially larger by 2025 than the £8.86 billion in today’s figures. 

“These announcements take us to step 6 of 12 in the budget allocation process mapped out recently by UKRI. Next comes the detailed allocations by UKRI’s Board to its component parts—though with Innovate UK’s larger share already locked in, there’s limited scope for big moves here, without imposing cuts on individual councils or core programmes. We’re also expecting UKRI’s Strategy to surface soon, which will give more detail on its priorities and plans over the next three years and beyond.

“One other striking aspect of today’s BEIS figures is the ARIA budget, which is now coming on stream more slowly than was envisaged — only reaching its envisaged £200m per year level by 2024-25. This reflects delays in getting ARIA to a point where it becomes fully operational, and highlights the gap that often arises between legislative ambition and concrete delivery of new R&D structures and investments.”

Professor Sir Jim McDonald FREng FRSE, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, says:

“Investing in innovation is investing in the future—today’s announcement on how the uplift in funding announced at Spending Review 2021 will be allocated gives an indication on how the government plans to makes its ambitions a reality.

“A comprehensive approach is important to ensuring the UK research and innovation ecosystem can deliver the government’s ambition of becoming a science and technology superpower. Combined with the recent commitments made in the Levelling Up White Paper to increase public investment in R&D outside the Greater Southeast, I am hopeful that today’s announcement will allow us to grow our knowledge and innovation-led economy across the UK.

“As we await further detail on what the settlement will mean in practice for engineering and innovation in the UK, we will continue to support and promote their vitally important roles in building a sustainable society and an inclusive economy that works for everyone.”

Prof John Womersley, former Chief Executive, Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), said:

“The headline figures in this budget are good and follow the previously announced trajectory to boost overall science funding.

“However, the devil is in the details – scientists are waiting to see how the individual council budgets within UKRI will fare and especially whether the core research funding lines that support university-based research will increase at the same rate. Researchers are also growing concerned that these increases will be eaten up by rapidly rising inflation

“And of course, the overall research budget includes funding set aside to support UK accession to the EU’s Horizon Europe research programme. This announcement just serves to remind us that UK participation in Horizon Europe remains blocked by the European Commission as part of the ongoing dispute over the Northern Ireland protocol, despite increasing numbers of European researchers urging that the issues should be decoupled. This is especially true at a time when Western democracies with shared values should be working together in the face of external threats.”

Nicola Perrin, CEO, Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC), said:

“Sustained investment is so important for research which, by its very nature, takes time. What we think of as overnight cures come from years of previous hard work, effort and funding. This Government commitment is a positive signal about the importance of R&D to the UK’s economy. Medical research charities, industry and the public sector are all vital cogs in the complicated network of research funding. Let’s keep them strong and able to deliver what we all need to stay as healthy as possible for as long as possible.”

Tony McBride, Director of Policy and Public Affairs, Institute of Physics (IOP), said:

“Today’s announcement on R&D spending from the UK government is a recognition of how important getting this right is to our economy and society. Public funding for R&D is vital for unlocking the potential of physics, which underpins 11% of GDP across key UK sectors and technologies, and more than 1/3 of business R&D. That’s why the IOP will shortly be launching its own national consultation to design our own blueprint on how to reach the 2.4% investment target, and how physics can contribute to achieving it.”

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-announces-plans-for-largest-ever-rd-budget

Declared interests

The nature of this story means everyone quoted above could be perceived to have a stake in it. As such, our policy is not to ask for interests to be declared – instead, they are implicit in each person’s affiliation.