Government sets up guidance for 10-year R&D commitment

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has developed a 10-year funding plan to guide public sector research and development (R&D) spending.

The government’s goal is to enable departments to implement a targeted approach and allocate 10-year budgets to specific programmes, activities and smaller research organisations to drive economic and scientific benefits associated with long-term funding. 

R&D is among the big policy bets Labour is making to drive long-term economic growth. It’s integral to the government’s forthcoming industrial strategy. The guidance recognises that some R&D initiatives, fostering greater collaboration with business and international partners and the UK’s ambition to bolster skills, require long-term funding. This funding commitment needs to be budgeted by government departments and other public sector bodies.

DSIT said it worked with the Treasury and other stakeholders to develop the principles of 10-year funding and the process by which public bodies will select specific activities or institutions for long-term funding, to provide transparency for the R&D sector.

The guidance recommends that public bodies should set a maximum limit for the proportion of R&D budget that, at any one time, should be allocated to 10-year funding. DSIT said this will retain the agility to respond to new and emerging priorities in the short and medium term.

DSIT said government departments will operate their own selection process, in line with the guidance, which covers four areas. The first, infrastructure and core capabilities, is for 10-year initiatives to support development and maintenance of core national infrastructure. The guidance also covers support for what DSIT calls “more impactful use of such infrastructure”, which it said would not be possible under shorter funding cycles.

The second area covered by the guidance for 10-year R&D funding is in attraction and retention of talent. The government plans to use longer-term funding to enable development of a pipeline of skilled researchers, scientists or engineers that will be needed as part of Labour’s Plan for Change.

The two other areas covered by the funding guidance are international collaboration and partnerships with business. 

“Research and innovation, from computing and AI [artificial intelligence] to health breakthroughs, need stability of funding,” said science minister Patrick Vallance. “We are delivering on our manifesto commitment to support and encourage public bodies to deliver long-term, 10-year funding streams where appropriate, while retaining the flexibility of shorter-term cycles to deal with emerging priorities.

“This change will provide certainty to certain types of research organisations and unlock vital business investment into our world-class research sector to drive the growth at the heart of our Plan for Change,” he said.

In the 2024 Autumn Budget, the government committed to invest £20.4bn on research and development in 2025-26.

Earlier in May, the National Audit Committee (NAO) reported that UKRI, the organisation that provides multi-year funding to support the UK’s research and innovation strategy, faces a lack of joined-up direction from government departments.

The UKRI’s work feeds into government departments and public bodies’ research and innovation-led initiatives. The NAO said that 24 government departments and public bodies have published the main research questions they are facing.