Recommendation 17

DSIT highlighted work that it has done in recent years to be able to look at the whole range of R&D spending across government but acknowledged that there is a lot more work to do to bring together all the R&D data from across government and to be able to talk about it as a single system.36 For example, in 2024 the Department and UKRI set up a Metascience Unit to develop and share evidence on the best ways to 29 Q 76 30 Q 77 31 C&AG’s Report, para 1.15: Qq 16, 21 and 35 32 Q 40 33 C&AG’s Report, para 13 34 Q 42 35 Q 18 36 Q 40 12 practice, fund and support science, including through experiments to test potential improvements to UKRI’s processes.37 UKRI told us that these experiments would include ways to bring data sources together from across government on investment in R&I.38