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| Established | 1 April 2018 |
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| Type | Non-departmental public body |
| Headquarters | Swindon, Wiltshire, England |
Staff | 7,463 (2019/20) |
| Website | www |
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.
Established on 1 April 2018 by the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, UKRI brought nine organisations into one unified body. [1] [2] 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. [3]
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". [2] The first Chief Executive Officer of UKRI was the immunologist Professor Sir Mark Walport. [4] He was succeeded on 29 June 2020, by plant biologist Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser. [5]
There are nine bodies in UKRI, comprising the seven research councils formerly organised under Research Councils UK and two additional bodies, Innovate UK and Research England. [6] Innovate UK had its roots in 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. [7]
| Research council | Formation | Website | Budget 2019–2020 [8] |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arts and Humanities Research Council | 2005 | AHRC website | £140M |
| Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council | 1994 | BBSRC website | £459M |
| Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council | 1994 | EPSRC website | £1096M |
| Economic and Social Research Council | 1965 | ESRC website | £252M |
| Medical Research Council | 1913 | MRC website | £742M |
| Natural Environment Research Council | 1965 | NERC website | £444M |
| Science and Technology Facilities Council | 2007 | STFC website | £728M |
| Innovate UK | 2007 | Innovate UK | £1265M |
| Research England | 2018 | Research England | £2377M |
The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom, which was responsible for the distribution of funding for higher education to universities and further education colleges in England since 1992. It ceased to exist as of 1 April 2018, when its duties were divided between the newly created Office for Students and Research England.
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation, is a non-departmental public body (NDPB), and is the largest UK public funder of non-medical bioscience. It predominantly funds scientific research institutes and university research departments in the UK.
In British research policy, the Haldane principle is the idea that decisions about what to spend research funds on should be made by researchers rather than politicians. It is named after Richard Burdon Haldane, who in 1904 and from 1909 to 1918 chaired committees and commissions which recommended this policy, which has evolved over time since then.
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a British Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical sciences, mainly to universities in the United Kingdom. EPSRC research areas include mathematics, physics, chemistry, artificial intelligence and computer science, but exclude particle physics, nuclear physics, space science and astronomy. Since 2018 it has been part of UK Research and Innovation, which is funded through the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), formerly Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB), is a British research council, established in 1998, supporting research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities.
Research Councils UK, sometimes known as RCUK, was a non-departmental public body that coordinated science policy in the United Kingdom from 2002 to 2018. It was an umbrella organisation that coordinated the seven separate research councils that were responsible for funding and coordinating academic research for the arts, humanities, science and engineering. In 2018 Research Councils transitioned into UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), formerly the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). UKRI is a non-departmental public body (NDPB) funded by the UK government. ESRC provides funding and support for research and training in the social sciences. It is the UK's largest organisation for funding research on economic and social issues.
University Alliance (UA) is an association of British universities formed in 2006 as the Alliance of Non-Aligned Universities, adopting its current name in 2007.
Dame Patricia Anne Hodgson, is a British broadcasting executive, competition regulator, and academic administrator.
The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) is a United Kingdom government agency that carries out research in science and engineering, and funds UK research in areas including particle physics, nuclear physics, space science and astronomy.
Innovate UK is the United Kingdom's innovation agency, which provides money and support to organisations to make new products and services. It is a non-departmental public body operating at arm's length from the Government as part of the United Kingdom Research and Innovation organisation.
Dame Henrietta Miriam Ottoline Leyser is a British plant biologist and Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Cambridge who is on secondment as CEO of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). From 2013 to 2020 she was the director of the Sainsbury Laboratory, Cambridge.
The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is a research impact evaluation of British Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). It is the successor to the Research Assessment Exercise and it was first used in 2014 to assess the period 2008–2013. REF is undertaken by the four UK higher education funding bodies: Research England, the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW), and the Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland (DfE).
The UK Data Service is the largest digital repository for quantitative and qualitative social science and humanities research data in the United Kingdom. The organisation is funded by the UK government through the Economic and Social Research Council and is led by the UK Data Archive at the University of Essex, in partnership with other universities.
Professor Dame Jessica Lois Corner DBE FMedSci is a British nurse, academic, educator and author. She is currently the Executive Chair of Research England. She was previously Professor of Cancer and Supportive Care, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange at the University of Nottingham.
Julia Mary Black is the strategic director of innovation and a professor of law at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She was the interim director of the LSE, a post she held from September 2016 until September 2017, at which time Minouche Shafik took over the directorship. She is the president of the British Academy, the UK's national academy for the humanities and social sciences, and became the academy's second female president in July 2021 for a four-year term.
Dame Angela Rosemary Emily Strank is head of downstream technology and chief scientist of BP, responsible for technology across all the refining, petrochemicals, lubricants and fuels businesses.
The Higher Education and Research Act 2017 was enacted into law in the United Kingdom by the Houses of Parliament on 27 April 2017. It is intended to create a new regulatory framework for higher education, increase competition and student choice, ensure students receive value for money, and strengthen the research sector.
Research England is a part of United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) that oversees the functions of UKRI in relation to university research and knowledge transfer in England. This includes:
The Advanced Research and Invention Agency, or ARIA, is a research funding agency of the UK government, announced on 19 February 2021 and formally established on 26 January 2023.
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