Forty-First Report of Session 2024-25
Department for
Science, Innovation
and Technology
UK Research and Innovation
Introduction from
the Committee
The government considers research and innovation (R&I) and
the diffusion of new technologies to be vital to the UK's future
and to achieving long-term and complex policy goals, including
its mission to grow the UK economy and achieve net zero. R&I
can be defined as the creation and application of new knowledge
to improve the world. Often, R&I does not follow a neat
stage-by-stage process but instead can be understood as taking
place in a system. The UK R&I system is a complex network of
organisations involved in the creation, diffusion and use of
scientific knowledge as well as the coordination and support of
these activities.
The government has a long history of investing in R&I, and in
2024 committed “to promote innovation and harness the full
potential of the UK's science base [through] protecting record
funding for research and development”. Many government
departments and public bodies invest in R&I, with 24
government departments and public bodies publishing the main
research questions they are facing. In the 2024 Autumn Budget,
the government committed to invest £20.4 billion in R&I in
2025–26. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is the UK's largest
single public funder of R&I, with a budget of £9.6 billion in
2023–24. Established in 2018, UKRI is a non-departmental public
body formed of seven disciplinary research
councils, Research England (which supports research and
knowledge exchange at higher education institutions in England),
and the UK's innovation agency, Innovate UK.
UKRI's purpose, as set out in its strategy, is to invest in
R&I on behalf of the government to push the boundaries of
discovery, support innovative businesses to grow and scale, and
target solutions to national and global priorities, driving
economic, social, environmental and cultural benefits. UKRI also
supports wider government R&I across the UK and invests
internationally. In 2023–24, it made decisions on 28,866
applications for R&I grant funding. The mean value of a UKRI
grant awarded in a competitive process in 2022–23 was £0.5
million.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has
overall responsibility for the government's spending on science,
research and innovation. It is the sponsoring department for UKRI
and sets UKRI's budget and objectives. The Secretary of State for
Science, Innovation and Technology approves UKRI's strategy.
Based on a report by the National Audit Office, the Committee
took evidence on Thursday
5 June 2025 from the Department of Science, Innovation and
Technology and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The Committee
published its report on Wednesday 23 July 2025. This is the
government's response to the Committee's report.
Relevant reports
Government response
to the
Committee
- The government agrees with the Committee's
recommendation. Target implementation date:
Autumn 2025
- Research and innovation are central to delivering each of
the government's five missions. In June 2025, the Spending
Review and the Industrial Strategy provided clear direction to
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) around its role in enabling
the government's Plan for Change. UKRI will increase the
support it provides to the growth-driving sectors outlined in
the Industrial Strategy and pivot its programmes and budgets
towards research and innovation priorities set out in the
Sector Plans.
- As part of this, the £500 million R&D Missions
Accelerator Programme, delivered by UKRI, will target research
and innovation towards addressing priority problems facing the
government's five missions, bringing together partnerships
between research and industry. The programme seeks to leverage
a further £1.5 billion of private investment and generate
innovation solutions that can be pulled through to adoption in
the public and private sectors.
- The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
(DSIT) will shortly publish new strategic objectives for UKRI,
which set out the organisation's role delivering government
priorities. This is discussed further at recommendation 2.
These new objectives will be aligned with the government's
three priorities for investment in R&D: protecting and
growing curiosity driven research; addressing government
priorities and tackling societal challenges; and supporting
R&D intensive companies to start-up, scale up, and stay in
the UK. This approach is intended to increase strategic clarity
and transparency around investment and its expected outcomes,
as part of the government's plans to reform the R&D system
over the longer term around a limited set of priorities.
- The government agrees with the Committee's
recommendation. Target implementation date: Autumn
2025
- DSIT is developing strategic objectives for UKRI in order
to monitor its delivery against government priorities,
including the five missions and the Industrial Strategy. The
strategic objectives will be underpinned by a set of measurable
key results. DSIT will publish the strategic objectives and key
results by Autumn 2025.
- As set out in the Industrial Strategy, the new strategic
objectives will set out UKRI's role in enabling innovation,
commercialisation, and scale-up across the UK. The strategic
objectives will also detail UKRI's critical role in protecting
curiosity-driven research.
- The government agrees with the Committee's
recommendation. Target implementation date: Summer
2026
- UKRI routinely publishes details of awards made via its
funding systems through the UKRI Gateway to Research website.
UKRI Gateway to Research provides ongoing open access to data
on projects, people, organisations and outcomes from 2006 to
the present day and is updated every quarter.
- However, DSIT and UKRI acknowledge that further work is
needed to ensure that this data is both comprehensive and
easily accessible, and UKRI is developing a new online portal
to replace Gateway to Research, currently planned to be
launched in Summer 2026. The new online portal will draw data
from UKRI's data warehouse, Databank, which provides a
repository for information on research and innovation grants.
Work is underway to improve the coverage of the UKRI portfolio
in this published data and to clearly identify funds managed on
behalf of other government departments. This will improve the
availability of UKRI funding data to all users, including
government officials, investors and members of the public.
- Changes to increase the published detail of UKRI funding
data are underway now and will steadily deliver improved
coverage of the portfolio. UKRI will report to the Committee on
progress made and further plans in February 2026.
- DSIT and UKRI will also publish a detailed breakdown of
UKRI allocations for the next Spending Review period, before
the start of the next financial year.
- The government agrees with the Committee's
recommendation. Target implementation date: February
2026
- UKRI's organisational change programmes are overhauling its
systems and processes to enhance grant administration, data
quality, information security and to implement other essential
improvements.
- UKRI has been investing in improved data capabilities over
the last five years and has undergone two internal audit
reports noting the progress made. UKRI has developed a data
warehouse, Databank, to provide a central repository for UKRI
data that can be consolidated from multiple sources. As part of
its organisational change approach, UKRI is producing
prioritised roadmaps for investment in data and other essential
improvements.
- UKRI has re-contracted with its supplier for collecting
research outcome data for the research councils, following
market engagement and competitive open tender. The revised
contract requires changes that we expect will drive improvements
to the completeness, accuracy and detail of metadata captured via
this process, while minimising administrative burden. Outputs are
analysed annually and UKRI will demonstrate these improvements by
September 2026.
- UKRI's in-house systems for processing grant funding
applications allow scope to invest to take account of changing
user needs over time. UKRI will maintain a careful balance
between:
- harmonisation and simplification with a focus on the
efficiency of operations both within UKRI and the organisations
we fund, and
- the need for flexibility and innovation to maximise the
effectiveness of the platform in supporting the best R&I
outcomes.
- UKRI will provide an update to the Committee in February
2026 on implementation progress of the wider organisational
change programme and plans for further modernisation.
- The government agrees with the Committee's
recommendation. Target implementation date: February
2026
- DSIT developed a risk appetite statement in November 2024,
which stated the department has both the opportunity and
obligation to try approaches that may bring greater rewards,
particularly where those approaches can act as trailblazers for
other programmes.
- UKRI has a long track record in supporting high-risk
research as part of its overall portfolio. UKRI developed a
risk appetite statement in 2021, which is reviewed biennially
in line with UKRI's Risk Management Policy. The risk appetite
statement is a fundamental element of the Risk Management
Framework and reviews are undertaken with teams across UKRI to
ensure that risk appetite types and levels are effective. UKRI
will incorporate the NAO's recommendations into its 2025 review
of its risk appetite statement, to be completed by February
2026. This will be closely monitored by DSIT.
- UKRI will develop guidance for each risk appetite type to
provide information on the risk appetite level and its
implementation. UKRI will provide further support through
training and its Risk and Assurance partnering team.
- UKRI has also established a community of practice for staff
delivering funding competitions, which will ensure the risk
appetite for different stages in the funding process is
actively communicated. UKRI will also review instructions for
peer reviewers and grants panels to ensure they effectively
consider UKRI's risk appetite.
- UKRI will, through the updated risk appetite statement,
ensure that a new approach to learning from risk taking is
evaluated as part of the management of our portfolio.
- The government agrees with the Committee's
recommendation. Target implementation date: Spring
2026
- DSIT will publish allocations to UKRI in Autumn 2025, and
UKRI's allocations will be
published by Spring 2026.
- DSIT and UKRI will draw on a variety of data sources to
understand where to have the greatest impact on scaling
innovation domestically. This involves not only assessing where
there is strength in research, but also where there are
existing or nascent industry strengths, absorption capacity and
identifiable market failures.
- UKRI has recently launched the first round of the new
discipline agnostic Proof-of- Concept funding opportunity.
Understanding the full impact will only be possible after the
first rounds of projects conclude and are evaluated (evaluation
dates not yet confirmed). Early insights will contribute to
allocation decisions.
- Scaling innovation is not a linear pipeline from research
to scale-up but instead requires an integrated approach across
different actors (both private and public) that provides the
right policy environment for innovative firms at every stage of
their growth journeys. The government's Industrial Strategy set
out how we plan to achieve this. This includes better
engagement and alignment between UKRI, the British Business
Bank, the National Wealth Fund and other public finance
institutions through the new Strategic Public
Investment Forum, plus more effective use of public
procurement to buy from innovative suppliers, and removing
regulatory barriers to scaling.
- In deciding the aforementioned allocations, DSIT will
consider the impact on the financial sustainability of
university research. DSIT uses analyses of Transparent Approach
to Costing data, as well as insights and analyses provided by
UKRI, to understand the financial challenges universities face
within the R&I system.
