Recommendation 12

In the third and most recent wave of funding that started in 2019–20, it took UKRI, the Department and HM Treasury 72 weeks to select and approve challenges.32 We asked the Department and UKRI why it took them over a year to select and approve challenges. The Department told us that fundamentally the time taken was because it was a difficult process, but recognised that overall it had taken too long and committed to a faster process next time. It identified three reasons for the day: that it had been more open to receiving ideas for challenges and had to consider over 250 proposals as a result; the business cases themselves were challenging because they needed to demonstrate that the Fund was supporting research that could be considered ‘genuinely incremental’; and it had to make sure that proposals were relevant to the Industrial Strategy.33