Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 20
20
Whilst UKRI does not have an explicit objective to consider the regional balance in its...
Conclusion
Whilst UKRI does not have an explicit objective to consider the regional balance in its funding awards, the 2017 Industrial Strategy did include a focus on ‘prosperous communities’ across the UK.55 The government’s 2020 Roadmap for R&D expenditure sets out its intention that spending on R&D and innovation should contribute to its ‘levelling up’ agenda.56 Analysis by the National Audit Office showed that the distribution of funding across the regions was uneven. Between 2017 and 2020, almost two thirds of the money committed to projects as part of the Fund had been distributed to companies registered in three regions of the UK—London, South East and West Midlands. In comparison, areas such as the North East or Yorkshire & Humber received 2.9% and 1.8% of the Fund respectively over the same period. The NAO concluded that this distribution was not necessarily explained by factors such as population size or the distribution of business undertaking R&D activity. UKRI noted that this analysis was based on data on the location of the organisation in receipt of the funding and not necessarily where the R&D activity took place. However, it did not provide us with any analysis setting out the regional distribution of the Fund based on where it thought R&D activity was actually taking place.57
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
5.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: October 2021 5.2 The department and UKRI recognise that all R&D funding has a key role to play in the levelling-up agenda. As outlined in The Queen’s Speech 2021, levelling up opportunities across all parts of the UK is a key government agenda. This is supported by UKRI through its mission to build a research and innovation system in the UK, to which everyone can contribute and from which everyone can benefit. 5.3 The Fund has made significant investments across the whole UK. The NAO report cites investment in all four nations of the UK. • Scotland £128.5 million4 • Northern Ireland £16.2 million • Wales £87.5 million • England £1640.9 million 5.4 Data to assess regional investment have been collected throughout the lifecycle of the Fund with continued improvements made to the monitoring and evaluation of regional impacts. As this data set matures, officials in the department will continue to work with UKRI to investigate the drivers behind regional disparity of the ISCF funding distribution to date and will seek to improve participation across all parts of the UK for future Challenge-led funding. . 5.5 The government is due to publish its UK R&D Places Strategy later in 2021, which will also address these issues. 5.6 The department and UKRI will write to the Committee by October 2021 setting out the factors relating to regional participation in the Fund and how learning will be embedded into future Challenge delivery.