Innovate UK’s Integration with Research UK

Overview

The government has announced that it will take forward Sir Paul Nurse’s recommendation to bring the seven Research Councils under a new overarching body – Research UK.  It will also look to integrate  Innovate UK into Research UK, to strengthen collaboration with the research base and the commercialisation of discoveries in the business community.

We would welcome your views on how we could maximise the opportunities from Innovate UK’s integration into Research UK.

Why your views matter

The government is committed to making Britain the best place in Europe to innovate, patent new ideas and start a business. At the 2015 Spending Review it made clear its commitment to science, research and innovation. The science ring fence has been retained and the government has protected innovation spend (through Innovate UK). The government is also committed to the Catapult network, which it will seek to strengthen and grow over the term of this Parliament.

The government has announced changes (and has consulted on others through the Higher Education Green Paper) to the Government funded bodies in the research and innovation landscape. The government announced it will take forward Sir Paul Nurse’s recommendation to bring the seven Research Councils under a new overarching body – Research UK. This new organisation would be a non-Departmental public body with a single Accounting Officer. The intention of creating Research UK is to facilitate greater strategic coordination of research activity and enable a stronger focus on multi-disciplinary research. This will maximise value for money from public investment in research. 

Innovate UK, as the government's innovation agency, works with business and academia to stimulate and accelerate business led innovation to boost UK growth and productivity. It has an important role to play in supporting the commercial exploitation of the excellent research produced in the UK. Innovate UK uses a variety of approaches to encourage business/university collaboration, including through funding projects and through the network of Catapult centres. Innovate UK’s new five-point plan includes working with the research community and across government to turn scientific excellence into economic impact. Innovate UK is now in the process of developing its 2016-20 Strategic Plan, which will be based around a new simplified and customer focused offer to business, which it will start to implement from April 2016.  

The government has announced that it would look to integrate Innovate UK into Research UK to strengthen collaboration with the research base and the commercialisation of discoveries in the business community.

The government is considering a range of options for the scope and structure of Research UK, including around Innovate UK’s integration into this new body. The Government is committed to some underpinning principles including: the retention of strong leadership in individual discipline areas; Innovate UK retaining its business focus and separate funding stream; and the retention of both the dual support funding system and the Haldane principle, which are central characteristics of the UK’s world-leading research base.

We would welcome your views on how we could maximise the opportunities from Innovate UK’s integration into Research UK.