PRESS RELEASE : Universities call on government to back world-leading UK research and innovation ahead of autumn statement [November 2022]

We have joined with more than 100 business organisations, education leaders and individual researchers in writing to the Chancellor urging the government not to cut R&D funding. This funding is the engine of growth, enabling universities to attract investment and talent, make world-leading discoveries, generate knowledge, and create and nurture new, innovative businesses and jobs across the UK.

Research and innovation creates growth and opportunity

This call follows our recently published report ‘Our Universities: Generating Growth and Opportunity’ highlighting the ways in which universities can play a bigger role in generating economic growth by supporting jobs and prosperity, boosting skills and opportunities, and building pride in place and local communities.

University research excellence is also well-distributed geographically across the whole of the UK, with recent assessments showing over 80% of submitted research activity to be world-leading or internationally excellent.

University-led research and infrastructure lays the foundation for new innovations, and universities are directly involved in the creation of new businesses as well as future-facing jobs:

• Despite the pandemic, in 2020/21 alone, 4,936 new businesses emerged from universities.
• Businesses that emerged from universities in 2020/21 employed 95,503 people and attracted over £7 billion of external investment.
• In the same period, these firms had an estimated turnover of nearly £13 billion.
• It is also estimated that university research and innovation will lead to an additional 20,000 new businesses in the next 5 years.
• In 2020-21 alone, universities had 75,500 contracts providing businesses with consultancy, and 17,000 to provide facilities and equipment, to develop innovative products and services.

Investment in R&D supports universities to work with local and national businesses through consultancy or contract research, providing specialist advice and access to the latest facilities and equipment to develop innovative products.

Losing EU funding

This fiscal event also comes at a time of continued uncertainty over the UK’s association to Horizon Europe, and EU structural funds coming to an end this year. We are urging government to secure association to Horizon Europe and protect the budget set aside to fund alternatives and for urgent action to avoid the loss of hundreds of vital growth-boosting research and innovation projects at risk, which will see their EU funding end this year.

Not losing momentum

Following the last austerity era, there were suggestions that the UK’s research output may have lost momentum in terms of international competitiveness. We do not want to lose our momentum again at a time when growth is a key strategic priority.

Public funding for university research and innovation is key to driving long-term economic growth and prosperity across the UK. Certainty around public funding will also help leverage the private investment needed to achieve the government’s ambition. Ensuring this funding is stable and long-term creates the conditions for effective collaboration and high-risk innovation activities leading to transformational breakthroughs – such as the Covid-19 vaccine.