Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 28
41st Report - UK Research and Innovation
Published 23 Jul 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee UK Research and Innovation All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
We asked what UKRI and DSIT are doing to address the systemic challenges to achieving economic growth by commercialising the results of R&I.74 DSIT told us that it is currently focusing on how public sector investors (including Innovate UK, the British Business Bank, the National Wealth Fund, and UK Export Finance) can best channel their investments to help investment-ready ventures to scale up successfully.75 UKRI told us that universities tended to spin out their commercial ventures too soon, before they had done enough work to establish the commercial viability of their ideas. To improve the chances of success, UKRI also said that it has launched a Proof-of-Concept Fund, which will provide pre-incorporation investment to help start-ups to develop to a point at which they become more attractive to external investors.76 DSIT told us it is looking at how to make government procurement easier for small technology businesses to navigate, as adoption by public services can assist such companies to scale up more rapidly.77
From: Public Accounts Committee, 41st Report - UK Research and Innovation (HC 826), 23 July 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Forty-first Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026 (deadline 23 September 2025).
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Forty-first report from Session 2024-26
Published 15 October 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it agrees with each of the Committee's recommendations on UKRI's priorities, objectives, data, IT systems, risk and scaling innovation, with target dates between Autumn 2025 and Summer 2026.
- On objectives, DSIT is developing strategic objectives for UKRI underpinned by measurable key results, and will publish them "by Autumn 2025".
- On data visibility, UKRI is developing a new online portal to replace Gateway to Research, "currently planned to be launched in Summer 2026", and will report to the Committee on progress in February 2026.
- On risk, UKRI will incorporate the NAO's recommendations into its 2025 review of its risk appetite statement, "to be completed by February 2026" and "closely monitored by DSIT".
- On scaling innovation, the impact of the new Proof-of-Concept funding "will only be possible" to understand after the first rounds conclude and are evaluated, with evaluation dates "not yet confirmed".