UK Research and Innovation

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UK Research and Innovation
UK Research and Innovation logo.svg
Non-departmental public body overview
Formed1 April 2018;7 years ago (1 April 2018)
Headquarters Swindon, Wiltshire, England
Employees9001 (FY2024/25) [1]
Annual budget£9,966 million (FY2024/25) [1]
Ministers responsible
Non-departmental public body executives
Parent department Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
Child agencies
Website www.ukri.org

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is a non-departmental public body of the Government of the United Kingdom that directs research and innovation funding, funded through the science budget of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

Contents

History and role

UKRI was created following a report by Sir Paul Nurse, the President of the Royal Society, who recommended the merger in order to increase integrative cross-disciplinary research. [2]

UKRI was established on 1 April 2018 by the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. It brought together the seven research councils and two additional bodies, Innovate UK and Research England. [3] [4] [5] Innovate UK (formerly the Technology Strategy Board) was an Arms Length Body of the Department of Trade and Industry, while Research England succeeded the former Higher Education Funding Council for England. Research England is responsible for the Research Excellence Framework, or REF, and is developing a new knowledge exchange framework, KEF. [6]

Working in partnership with universities, research organisations, businesses, charities, and government, its mission is to foster research and development within the United Kingdom and create a positive "impact"—"push the frontiers of human knowledge and understanding", "deliver economic impact", and "create social and cultural impact". [4] The first Chief Executive Officer of UKRI was the immunologist Professor Sir Mark Walport. [7] He was succeeded in June 2020 by plant biologist Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser. [8]

Councils

CouncilFormationWebsiteBudget (FY2024/25) [1]
Arts and Humanities Research Council 2005 AHRC website £77 million
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council 1994 BBSRC website £322 million
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council 1994 EPSRC website £641 million
Economic and Social Research Council 1965 ESRC website £134 million
Medical Research Council 1913 MRC website £604 million
Natural Environment Research Council 1965 NERC website £320 million
Science and Technology Facilities Council 2007 STFC website £608 million
Innovate UK 2007 Innovate UK £919 million
Research England 2018 Research England £2006 million

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "UK Research and Innovation Annual Report and Accounts 2024–25". GOV.UK. Retrieved 11 October 2025.
  2. ↑ "Nurse review of research councils". GOV.UK. 19 November 2015. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
  3. ↑ "John Kingman to Lead Creation of New £6 Billion Research and Innovation Body – GOV.UK". gov.uk. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  4. 1 2 "About us – UK Research and Innovation". www.ukri.org. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
  5. ↑ "Our Councils – UK Research and Innovation". ukri.org. Archived from the original on 26 October 2020. Retrieved 29 August 2020.
  6. ↑ Pells, Rachael (14 October 2017). "England's KEF: will it be a 'patent-counting' extra reporting burden?" . Times Higher Education . Retrieved 10 April 2018.
  7. ↑ Ghosh, Pallab (4 July 2017). "UK Research Chief "Will Not Direct Science"". BBC News. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  8. ↑ "Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser to join UK Research and Innovation as new Chief Executive". ukri.org. Archived from the original on 28 October 2020. Retrieved 28 June 2019.

Sources

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