Committee Chairman writes to Chancellor - "remain in Horizon 2020 and increase science funding now to hit long-term GDP % target"

The Chair of the Commons Science and Technology Committee, Norman Lamb MP, has today written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, following the Committee’s evidence session on ‘The Science Budget and Industrial Strategy’.  

The Chair’s demands for the Budget will benefit the science and technology community, and the wider UK, if enacted. The conclusions in the letter were reached through the Committee’s inquiry, in which it heard from senior individuals representing UKRI, Universities UK, the Royal Academy, the CBI and Tech UK, among others. 

The letter urges the Chancellor to address the following issues in the Budget: 

• ·         Commit now to UK’s full participation in the ‘Horizon-2020’ research programme throughout the relevant research projects and throughout the Brexit implementation period, as well as EU’s successor ‘Framework Programme 9’.
• ·         Acknowledge that a further science uplift will be needed within the next 10 years of at least a further £2.4bn a year to deliver Government’s 2.4% of GDP target for overall R&D expenditure – and signal such an increase to be made within the current Spending Review period. 
• ·         Clarify the rationale for the selection of the ‘challenges’ on which the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund is based and how these will evolve.
• ·         Consider how the R&D Tax Credit system might be better targeted (for example, to spread science and innovation to the regions).
• ·         Extend place-based research and innovation interventions, including locating future new research institutes outside the ‘golden triangle’.
• ·         Publish the Connell review of the ‘Small Business Research Initiative’ without delay, and the government response, and establish a central fund and management for the Initiative and encourage all Government departments to deploy it. 

Full text of the letter and corresponding info graphic attached [ALSO EMBARGOED UNTIL 00:01AM WEDNESDAY 15 NOVEMBER].

The Committee reached these conclusion through receipt of written evidence and by hearing from the following individuals in oral evidence sessions: 

• ·         Rebecca Endean, Strategy Director, UK Research and Innovation
• ·         Professor Richard Jones, Professor of Physics, University of Sheffield
• ·         Professor Paul Boyle, Chair, Research Policy Network, Universities UK
• ·         Alun Evans, Chief Executive, British Academy
• ·         Dr Ruth McKernan, Chief Executive, Innovate UK
• ·         Dr David Connell, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge
• ·         Tom Thackray, Director for Innovation, CBI
• ·         Tom Morrison-Bell, Head of Public Affairs, techUK