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HEFCE is publicly announcing the funding for 131 higher education institutions and 213 further education colleges for the academic year 2016-17.

This announcement follows receipt of its grant letter from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on 4 March, and the meeting of the HEFCE Board on 9 March (Note 1).

The funding for the 2016-17 academic year will be £3,674 million, allocated for the following main areas of activity:

• £1,578 million for recurrent research
• £1,360 million for recurrent teaching
• £160 million for knowledge exchange
• £98 million for national facilities and initiatives (Note 2)
• £478 million for capital funding.

The key points to note this year include:

• An increase of £20 million for mainstream quality-related research (QR) and its London weighting, to a total of £1,070 million.
• Maintaining in real terms the total teaching grant budgets for our main high-cost subject allocations.
• Introducing a new fund for geographically focused national collaborative outreach activity that will target those places where students have the educational attainment or potential to succeed in higher education, but where there is evidence that entry rates are below expectations.
• Doubling the funding to improve provision for disabled students to £40 million. The increase is to support institutions to meet the rapid rise in the number of students reporting mental health problems and to transition towards an inclusive social model of support for disabled students.
• The overall amount of funding for teaching continues to decline, predominantly as a result of the continuing phasing-out of funding for students who enrolled under the previous lower fees model.

The recurrent grants are described in detail in ‘Recurrent grants for 2016-17’ (HEFCE 2016/09).

Professor Madeleine Atkins, HEFCE Chief Executive, said:

‘This year’s grant announcement will allow universities and colleges to continue to deliver world-class teaching, research and other activities. We are increasing funding for research to ensure that institutions can carry out ground-breaking work of the highest quality which will contribute to economic growth, health and social well-being.

‘We recognise that we need to make the greatest possible impact with government funding on increasing the number of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds entering higher education. Our new, highly targeted National Collaborative Outreach Programme aims to achieve that goal.

‘By protecting teaching funding to universities for STEM subjects, we recognise the higher costs of these subjects and the important role they play in the economy’.

Notes

1. This year’s funding announcement is later than usual because of the pre-election period.
2. National facilities and initiatives include investment through Jisc and for national initiatives such as the Catalyst Fund.