Recommendation 17

One of the Fund’s five objectives is to increase collaboration between new small companies and those that are established. Analysis undertaken by the National Audit Office showed that UKRI had initially succeeded in attracting a range of different sized companies to participate in the Fund. However, in the third wave of funding, the proportion of projects awarded to companies classified as large (categorised as having more than 250 staff) increased from 20% in the second wave of funding to 29% in the third. This expansion has been at the expense of the proportion of micro (categorised as having under 10 staff) and small sized enterprises (categorised as having between 10 and 50 staff). Their proportion of projects awarded fell from 44% in the second wave to 31% in the third wave.47