The financial sustainability of the UK’s research and innovation (R&I) system is essential for ensuring the UK can respond to new opportunities, deal with unexpected events, and fulfil our potential as one of the world’s leading scientific nations.
The Covid 19 pandemic demonstrated the resilience of universities in the face of a crisis, but it exposed vulnerabilities in the flow of funding through the system.
The Nurse Review published earlier this year highlighted longer-term financial concerns for research and the latest OfS annual report on UK higher education sector finances noted the impacts of high inflation and increasing deficits on university teaching and research.
In the Science and Innovation Investment Framework 2004-2014, the government at the time set out an intention for research councils to move to paying “close to” 100 per cent of the full economic costs (FEC) of projects by the end of 2014, taking full account of capital funding streams. In a joint letter to higher education institutions in 2005, science minister Lord Sainsbury and then minister for higher education Kim Howells delighted in announcing that research councils would start paying 80 per cent FEC on projects, a marked increase on the 60-70 per cent it was estimated most universities were recovering.
