The chancellor first announced at the spending review in June file R&D funding of £86 billion for 2026-30. UKRI was allocated £38.6 billion. UKRI runs organisations together with Innovate UK, which gives grants, loans and enterprise assist to modern corporations.
Announcing more details about how its funds will be spent, UKRI mentioned the funding will be invested throughout three precedence ‘buckets’:
- £8 billion on focused R&D addressing nationwide and societal priorities, together with clear power, well being resilience and nationwide safety
- £7 billion to assist modern firm progress, serving to UK companies scale and commercialise cutting-edge applied sciences
- £14 billion for the curiosity-driven research that underpins the UK R&D system
UKRI CEO Ian Chapman mentioned:
“We’re aligning our funds to a brand new single mission, to advance data, enhance lives, and drive UK progress.
“Over the next four years, we will scale research and innovation investment to almost £10bn per year and target world-leading areas with the strongest return for the UK.”
Science and expertise secretary Liz Kendall mentioned:
“There is not any path to stronger progress with out science, technology and innovation, so we should grasp the alternatives our world class researchers and innovators supply with each arms.
“By doing fewer things better and backing winning ideas, this round of record UKRI funding can help more promising UK businesses to scale up while homing in on projects which have the best chance of benefiting us all.”
The funding will be allocated over the 4 12 months interval as follows:
UKRI will arrange programmes throughout buckets two and three, with a concentrate on the federal government’s eight precedence excessive progress sectors: superior manufacturing, clear power, artistic industries, defence, digital and tech, monetary providers, life sciences, and skilled and enterprise providers.
It will be allocated throughout the sectors as follows:
The ‘wider priorities’ funding within the ‘supporting innovative companies’ bucket covers Innovate UK’s wider enterprise assist actions. UKRI mentioned “further detail” will “follow in due course”.
Earlier this 12 months, Innovate UK paused its Smart Grants programme which funded small companies. It mentioned it’s working with “start-ups and SME communities in determining how we can better serve these businesses, through funding and other support products”.