Tag: UKRI

  • UKRI has too many people telling it what to do without the resources to do what it’s told

    UKRI has too many people telling it what to do without the resources to do what it’s told

    UKRI has a massive job.

    As the National Audit Office’s (NAO) new report sets out in 2023–24 UKRI assessed close to 29,000 grant funding applications and spent £6bn on innovation grants. It featured in 105 policy papers across 13 ministerial departments in the last three years alone, and it has been seven years since the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) formally set out UKRI’s role and objectives.

    Scale

    The scale of UKRI’s work is so massive that according to its own estimates

    […] were it to receive a 2% budget increase each year for the following three financial years, its existing legal, statutory and political commitments would take up around 98% of its budget in 2025-26, 84% in 2026–27, and 74% in 2027–28. When also including investments that it considers critical, such as continuing to fund similar numbers of new doctoral students and similar levels of new curiosity-driven research, this would then take up around 103%, 101%, and 99% of its future budget, respectively, in those years

    The obvious question here is if UKRI has so much to do, if it is then compelled to do even more, how can it possibly change as government introduces new priorities. Whether it is moonshots, levelling up, supporting the industrial strategy, fuelling government missions, working with devolved authorities, or whatever comes next, UKRI’s funding is so committed it has little bandwidth to put its massive resources behind emerging government strategies.

    However, this assumes that UKRI has a clear idea of what it’s supposed to do in the first place.

    Roughly, UKRI has a corporate strategy which then informs its funding calls which institutions then bid for and through post award work UKRI then assures that the thing it set out to do is being done in some way. The NAO found that how government communicates its priorities to UKRI is a bewildering mix of things:

    ad hoc and routine meetings; board meetings; formal letters; key UK government strategies and mission statements; and spending review budgets. These are not consolidated or ranked, meaning that the government does not currently have an overall picture of what it is asking UKRI to do.

    It is therefore not surprising that in UKRI’s own strategy none of its formal objectives are “specific, measurable or time-bound, making it difficult to understand what outcome UKRI is seeking to achieve.”

    Priorities

    To the outside observer it would seem odd that UKRI doesn’t have a single ministerial letter with a single set of priorities which it can then pursue at the expense of everything else. Instead, in reading the NAO report it seems that UKRI has become the everything box where the entire hopes of a government are pinned, whether UKRI has the resources to achieve them or not.

    It’s easy to see how the research funding ecosystem becomes so complex. UKRI is an important part but it sits alongside the likes of ARIA, charitable organisations, national institutes, venture capital, businesses, and others. The bluntest assessment is that if the government is unable to specify a single set of aims for UKRI, UKRI then cannot measure outcomes as clearly as it would like – and even if it could there is little spare budget to pivot its work. The report makes clear that there is ongoing “prioritisation” to address this confusion – but this work will not conclude until after the spending review, by which point key decisions will already have been made.

    It’s not that UKRI is failing – by any reasonable assessment it is powering a world-leading research ecosystem, even with some deep cultural challenges – it’s that as NAO point out it is given a lot to do without all the tools to do it, and even when it can measure its work government priorities are liable to change anyway. The one thing that good research and innovation policy needs is time. The one thing every government has is little time to get anything done.

    It is even harder to assess whether its measurable things are good value on their own terms. NAO is interested in ensuring the public gets value for money in the things it funds. One of the challenges in assessing whether what UKRI does is good value for money is that outcomes from research and innovation funding are diffuse, happen on a long-time scale, and may even fail but in doing so moves the research ecosystem toward something that works in some hard to measure and adjacent way.

    Value

    Although not directly captured within the NAO report, assessing value for money within research and innovation also depends on which level it is assessed. For example, there may be investments in breakthrough science which return little direct economic benefits but expand the knowledge of a field in a way they one day might. There may be investments that achieve immediate economic benefits but have few long term economic benefits as new technologies become available.

    It is clear that UKRI would benefit from fewer directions and fewer priorities which would allow it to use its resources more efficiently and in turn measure its impact more easily. The problem is that government policy overtakes bureaucratic needs which in turn encourages policy churn.

    In lieu of being able to change the nature of politics part of the solution must lie in changing how UKRI works. The organisation is aware of this, and realises it needs a capacity which goes beyond adjusting the direction of its existing activities – rather, one that “incentivises applicants to put forward ideas that align with government objectives which can be quicker and more efficient than setting up new programmes.”

    The fundamental problem for policy makers is that they have collectively turned to UKRI with an enormous list of asks without the resources to achieve them. UKRI either needs clearer direction or more resources, or both, what it does not need is more asks without clear priorities.

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  • The National Audit Office’s review of UKRI has lessons for the government

    The National Audit Office’s review of UKRI has lessons for the government

    It should come as little surprise – given the scale and complexity of the challenge – that the government sees investing in research and innovation (R&I), and the accompanying promise of new technologies and ideas, as key to achieving its complex policy goals of growing the economy, transitioning to clean power, and modernising the NHS.

    After all, history shows that state backing of R&I to overcome a range of problems – particularly in times of crisis – is hardly a novel idea. If the rapid technological advances witnessed in the 1940s to support the war effort are receding further into the past, then memories of the mass Covid-19 vaccine rollout at least remain fresh.

    With this in mind, the government’s commitment “to promote innovation and harness the full potential of the UK’s science base” through “protecting record funding for research and development” is merely the latest example of those in power acknowledging the vast capacity of R&I to transform society.

    This tradition at least partly explains the strong international reputation the UK has accumulated over the years in the field of R&I, with UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) – the country’s largest single public funder of R&I – at the forefront.

    In 2023–24, UKRI assessed 28,866 applications for competitive grant funding, ultimately spending £6 billion on R&I grants. Its recently approved projects have included funding for very early-stage research in microbial fuel cells and hydrogen purification, and the development of bone stem cell and biomaterial technology to reduce infection rates and the cost of hip repairs.

    In short, UKRI plays a critical role in the country’s R&I ecosystem, supporting cutting-edge work that feeds not only into the government’s environmental and health policy ambitions, but in other areas too.

    And by looking at the effectiveness of UKRI’s grant support, the National Audit Office (NAO) has identified some lessons for government that can serve a very useful, and much broader, purpose when it comes to tackling the major challenges facing the country.

    Lessons learned

    First is the importance of taking a planned and coordinated approach to R&I, which involves using good quality information on funding and knowing how to build a base to innovate in each research area. Government departments should be aware of other organisations with related objectives, determine whether they are also putting funds or resources into trying to innovate in that area, and identify potential linkages with their own workstreams.

    This “portfolio” approach to innovation is a key component in well-managed risk taking, which brings us to our second lesson: the need to establish a clear and effective risk appetite, and put in place the organisational cultures and processes that can support bold decision-making. Innovation – the act or process of doing something that has not been done before – goes hand-in-hand with risk. Embracing it requires the knowledge and the confidence in accepting that things may not turn out quite as intended, or may even fail together.

    The head of the NAO said as much in his recent address in Parliament, where he called on the government to unlock the vast opportunities for boosting productivity and strengthening resilience in the public sector by adopting a fast-learning approach when investing in innovation: in other words, learning quickly what works and what does not, so that failed projects can be promptly scrapped in favour of redirecting energy and resources to more promising ideas.

    Ultimately, a coherent, comprehensive and clearly communicated risk appetite can help organisations reap substantial rewards, more than offsetting the disappointment of unsuccessful ventures.

    Third is the caveat that while a clear plan, coordination and risk appetite can lead to successes, the full benefits of innovation cannot be realised without effective monitoring and evaluation. As well as evaluating programmes on a macro level, organisations should regularly draw together learning by theme (such as in a specific research area), with the support of strong data systems. Doing so can ensure that they effectively capture cumulative learning and develop a well-rounded understanding of which innovations are working well, which ones are not, and why.

    Across the whole of government

    Arguably the most important lesson of all, however, is remembering that these insights cut across the whole of government and need not be strictly applied to the domain of R&I. The projects funded by UKRI may be operating on the frontier of scientific and technological research, but this does not mean that what we learn about their approaches to innovation cannot be applied to other government contexts.

    If government is to achieve its long-term policy goals, it must do more to identify the public spaces where innovation is lacking, and take measures to reverse this trend. This includes breaking down the barriers that are preventing some organisations from adopting the right culture to allow innovation to flourish. It would do well to start with taking on board some of the lessons learned from UKRI’s approach.

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  • Eight critical questions for the new chief executive of UKRI

    Eight critical questions for the new chief executive of UKRI

    The appointment of a new chief executive for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) could not happen at a more crucial time.

    With public finances under strain, the case for public investment in R&D needs to be made cogently and needs to focus both on addressing the UK’s five government missions and on sustaining the fantastic research asset which the UK university sector represents. The list of issues for the new appointee will no doubt be lengthy, but we put forward the following as a possible shortlist of priorities.

    1. The interface (pipeline) between research councils and Innovate UK

    One of the main goals in establishing UKRI was to ensure a smooth pipeline from the research undertaken by the individual research councils to the industrial/end user base thereby bringing both economic and societal benefit. However, despite years of intent this pipeline seems as obstructed as ever. The fundamental question remains: to what extent is the role of Innovate UK to aid the transition of the outcomes resulting from research council funding versus simply supporting UK-based enterprises in their own research?

    Currently there are disconnects between the research priorities, often defined by government and implemented by the research councils, and the Innovate UK funding mechanism to ensure they are exploited. There are some exceptions here of course: the Creative Industries Clusters was a good example of a joint initiative between AHRC and Innovate UK which did integrate industry demand to local research strengths.

    A key priority for the new chief executive is to join up the pipeline more effectively across the whole range of industry sectors and ensure a very clear role for Innovate UK in partnership with the research councils and the subsequent interface to the National Wealth Fund or British Business Bank.

    2. Articulating and agreeing the balance between UKRI spend on government priorities and investment in the research base of the future

    As we have argued elsewhere on Wonkhe, the nation needs UKRI to fund both the research required by current government priorities relating to industrial strategies or societal challenges, and invest in the broader research base that, in the words of science minister Patrick Vallance, will feed the “goose that lays the golden egg” of our research base and the opportunities of tomorrow.

    Currently, this balance is, at best, hidden from view, suiting neither the needs of government nor the future aspirations of the sector. We urge UKRI to quantify this balance historically and to articulate a proposal to government for moving forward. We also require balance between the budget committed in the long-term to institutes, infrastructure, international subscriptions, and facilities vs. the shorter-term funding into the wider research and innovation community. Balancing these priorities requires a strengthening of the relationship, and open discussion, between UKRI, DSIT and wider government.

    3. Ensuring UKRI is relevant to the government’s regional economic development agenda

    As part of the government’s economic agenda, driving productivity growth in the tier-2 cities outside the South-East and the wealthier places in the UK is key to executing its growth mission. There is a clear tension here in UKRI acting as the key funding agency for public R&D spending driven solely by excellence, and a regional economic development mission, for which additional criteria apply. This tension must be addressed and not ignored.

    The creation of innovation accelerators in which additional funding was provided by government, but UKRI was involved in evaluating the merit of proposals, is a good example of how UKRI can drive change. As the government develops new levers to address and fund regional economic development, UKRI should play a key role in ensuring that this dovetails with the research and innovation base of the nation.

    4. Creating a highly skilled workforce

    As is becoming clear, the number of doctoral students supported by UKRI continues to fall – an issue highlighted, for example, by Cambridge vice chancellor Deborah Prentice in a recent Guardian interview. This is particularly clear in areas which have traditionally relied upon UKRI funding, such as the engineering and physical sciences. The corresponding research effort is in part bolstered by an increase in the number of fee-paying overseas students, but this does little to create the UK-based workforce industry needs.

    UKRI needs to prioritise funding and work with government to find new ways of addressing the skills the nation needs if we are to drive a productive knowledge-based economy. The skills required extend beyond doctoral degrees to include technical professionals and engineers.

    5. Sector confidence around REF as a rigorous, fair process, supportive of excellence

    The HE sector is in financial turmoil, manifested in the unprecedented number of UK higher education institutions currently implementing severance schemes. Ongoing uncertainties over the REF process, from the portability of outputs and the lack of an essential mechanism to ensure a diversity of authors (current proposals have no cap on the number of outputs that can be submitted from any one individual) to the absence of clarity on the people, culture and environment template’s support for excellence need resolution.

    This resolution is required, firstly so that research strategies institutions put in place prior to any census date have time to drive the changes required given that REF is meant to be formative as well as summative; and secondly so that institutions can efficiently deliver their REF returns to a standard and detail a government should expect to provide assurance over the future quality related (QR) spend.

    6. The importance and accountability of QR

    Virtually everyone in the sector embraces the notion that QR is central to the agility and sustainability of the UK research base. This certainty is matched with uncertainty within government as to the value for money this investment provides. If we are to maintain this level of trust in the sector’s ability to derive benefit from this investment, collectively we need to do a better job at showing how QR is central to the agility of our investment in the research outcomes of tomorrow and not simply a plugging of other, non-research related, financial holes. As both assessor and funder UKRI can lead and co-ordinate this response.

    7. Completion of the new funding service (the software needs to work!)

    The joint electronic submission system (Je-S) was outdated and potentially no longer supportable. Its back room equivalent, Siebel, even worse. Their replacement, the new funding service is an acceptable portal to applicants but seemingly still provides inadequate assurances for a system from which to make financial commitments. This shortcoming seems almost incomprehensible given it was an in-house development.

    Moving beyond the essential financial controls it seems to offer little by way of the AI assistance in the identification of reviewers that the software behind the submission systems for many of our research publications has offered for decades. Whether we lack the skills or investment to solve these issues is unclear, but the inefficiency of the current situation is wasteful of perhaps an even more precious resource, namely the time of UKRI staff to add human value to our research landscape. This seeming lack of skills and the systems we require is worrying too to the future REF exercise, even once the framework is known.

    8. Evidencing the effects of change

    Of course the world should and must move on. As a funder of research, it is appropriate that UKRI experiments with better ways of funding, becoming an expert in metascience. Changes inspired by ideology are fine, but it is essential that these changes are then assessed to see if the outcomes are those we desired.

    One example is the narrative CV, a well-meaning initiative to recognise a wider definition of excellence and an equality of opportunity. Is this what it achieved? Do we acknowledge the risks associated with AI or the unintended consequence of favouring the confident individual with English as their first language? While not advocating a return to the tradition of lists CV, we urge a formal reporting of outcomes achieved through the narrative CV using both quantitative and qualitative data and an evidenced based plan to move forward.

    Looking to the future

    We realise that criticism is easy and solutions are hard to find. So in case of doubt, we would like to finish with a call out to UKRI’s greatest resource, namely at all levels its committed and highly professional staff. We know at first hand the dedication of its workforce which is committed to fairly supporting the community, the research they do and the impact it creates.

    The role of chief executive of UKRI provides vital leadership not just to UKRI but to the sector as a whole, and the sector must unite to stand behind the new incumbent in solving the challenges that lie ahead.

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  • UKRI increases PhD stipend by 8 per cent

    UKRI increases PhD stipend by 8 per cent

    Let’s get the headlines out of the way first.

    UKRI is increasing its PhD stipend by eight per cent to £20,780 from 1 October 2025. Wonkhe understands that this will not be funded by a reduction in the overall number of grants but instead forms part of UKRI’s funding settlement for 2025–26.

    Pay

    This means that UKRI will provide a take home income that is equivalent to the take home National Living Wage. This is not the same as the Real Living Wage but it is nonetheless a significant and welcome increase.

    This is the single largest real terms increase of the stipend for funded students since 2003. Given that UKRI supports 20 per cent of doctoral students, and many universities choose to mirror the terms of UKRI, this will undoubtedly have a significant impact on improving the conditions of PGR students.

    There is a sort of unwritten expectation that providers will generally peg their own grants to the levels of UKRI’s. Albeit, as we learn from the accompanying financial analysis that goes with the main report about around one in five students receive an amount above the minimum stipend. However, while half of respondents to a survey on the UKRI stipend indicated that at least 90 per cent of their non-UKRI funded doctoral students received a stipend equivalent to that of UKRI’s minimum level, around one in ten indicated that all of their non-UKRI funded doctoral students receive a stipend lower than UKRI’s minimum.

    The potential implications of this are that some providers will further stretch their already stretched resources in maintaining UKRI’s funding levels, or that some providers will fall behind the UKRI minimum rate for students they fund directly. Prior to today’s announcement providers were generally positive about mooted increases. However, while 72 per cent of respondents say they would increase their own stipends to match the National Living Wage this is lower than the 89 per cent who said they would be very or somewhat likely to increase their own stipends by inflation (and a little higher than the 66 per cent said who said they would be very or somewhat likely to increase their stipend if it was anchored to the Real Living Wage).

    Providers, for their part, stated in interviews that

    Institutions would endorse in principle an increase in line with price inflation (at a minimum) or National Living Wage (which institutions feel, morally, would be preferable) and thought they would be able to match this for university funded stipends. However, for UKRI training grants, were such a raise not accompanied by additional grant funding from UKRI, ROs might need to reduce student numbers in the future to ensure they can continue paying the minimum stipend.

    Providers may see some good news in the increase in the minimum fee for a UKRI student increasing by 4.6 per cent to £5,006.This should mean that providers can recoup a slightly greater amount of funding for their students and like with grants many providers will align their home PGR fees to the UKRI minimum. This is an entirely different question as to whether providers are anywhere close to recouping the actual cost of teaching PGR students.

    Terms

    The funding increase will grab the headlines but the revisions to UKRI’s Standard Terms and Conditions of Training Grant (TGCs) are likely to be as impactful.

    In February 2023 UKRI commissioned Advance HE to carry out a review of its TGCs from an EDI perspective which has been considered alongside UKRI’s own new deal for postgraduate research. There is also a new companion document to the update to the TGCs by the UKRI commissioned Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Caucus (EDICa). In their report EDICa highlighted the impacts of child support on the continuation of studies, the wide variability in disabled students getting the support they need, the inflexibility in moving between full and part-time study, and the considerable time it takes in getting medical evidence for securing adjustments. As the authors state

    However, for many current doctoral training students, the system of support in its current form is entrenching wider inequalities, particularly relating to caring responsibilities, disability and the benefits that may be achieved through change of mode of study.

    This seems to be a message that UKRI has taken seriously.

    The first thing to point out is that UKRI is not a regulator and it is at pains to point this out

    UKRI is not a regulator and while we for the first time are explicit that we expect compliance with consumer law, employment law, Office for Students and Medr regulation (all where applicable), providers remain responsible for their own compliance and regulators for enforcement.

    It feels self evident but the revised terms make it explicit that the role of UKRI is to steer the organisations it funds, and by extension the sector, toward better conditions for PGR students. UKRI will impose conditions on its own grants but it has a wider set of expectations for the sector on improving the conditions for PGRs.

    The reason it is steering not shoving the sector are numerous. Primarily, it has limited powers within HERA but it also acknowledges that it is providers that are best placed to make decisions on their own students. The revision to the terms is the moment where some of the ambitions of the Tickell review have come to life in loosening the conditions and reducing the bureaucracy on student grant funding.

    This new flexibility comes in a number of forms. UKRI has extended the time a student can draw their stipend while on sick leave from 13 to 28 weeks. UKRI is also removing the requirement for students to provide medical evidence when taking medical leave, instead this process will be more closely managed by a students’ provider. This is because obtaining a diagnosis was a barrier to students taking the leave they needed.

    It is in their approach to supporting disabled students where the dynamic of UKRi improving its own conditions while encouraging universities to do likewise comes to light. They note

    We will require that disabled students are offered reasonable adjustments at the earliest opportunity and that the research organisation or provider has a policy to support this. For our part, we will update UKRI’s Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA) Framework in April 2025.

    Again, the expectation is that providers will not just act reasonably but they will only ask students for evidence of a disability where it is necessary to do so. This is a reflection of EHRC guidance, recommendations of the OfS Disabled Students’ Commission and the Bristol v Abrahart judgement.

    Finally, UKRI is removing restrictions on students moving between full or part-time modes of study. Their view is that providers are better placed to advise on student modes of study, and they may offer additional funding if they wish.

    There are other important measures within here which deserve consideration. Grant funding will include an individual risk assessment when a student is pregnant, breastfeeding or has given birth in the last six months. There is not strong evidence that PGR students are disadvantaged when joining a trade union. And there are still a whole range of challenges in getting support for international students due to the interplay between visa regulations and PGR study.

    In total this feels like the kind of policy change that the sector has been calling for. It is not the kind of public argument, back and forth debate, that has been seen on other culture measures like updating the REF. Instead, it is a considered series of changes to the actual conditions of PGR students that will put more money in their pockets while allowing greater flexibility around: leave, illness, support for disabled students, and mode of study. It is not perfect and the wider pressures PGR students will feel are still acute, but it is a big step forward.

    UKRI has taken an approach which the sector may recognise as reasonable. They have updated their own conditions based on the evidence presented to them, explained where they have chosen not to, and given greater flexibility to providers to do the things they believe are important.

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