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Science Minister Chris Skidmore sets out his vision for how to level up research and development so that it benefits every corner of the UK at the opening of the Durham University Teaching and Learning Centre.

It’s great to be in Durham, where I’ve had the opportunity of meeting the senior team here today, and hearing more about what the university is doing in their region, as well as the work happening to get women into STEM careers.

This month, I will have had the opportunity already to visit Airbus in Bristol, ODI Leeds, and the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre at the University of Sheffield, as well as the universities of Bolton, Manchester, Newcastle, York, Teesside, Sunderland and Northumbria. Next week I’ll be visiting the universities of Leicester, Northampton and Nottingham.

Ever since I was first appointed as Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, I’ve been determined to champion the excellent work on research and innovation taking place around the country, both by universities and industry.

And it’s with this theme in mind, that I wanted to speak to you today about the government’s future priorities for science, research and innovation.

No one can doubt the Prime Minister’s determination to invest in science and technology as a key priority for this administration.

Boris Johnson has committed to doubling the public R&D budget over 5 years, a giant leap towards meeting our pledge of spending 2.4% of GDP, both public and private, on R&D by 2027.

This represents the single biggest increase in public R&D spending by any government in the post-war period. And at this key juncture in our history, it perhaps represents the most significant increase ever.

Let us be clear why we are doing this. It is because, as the Prime Minister has repeatedly stated, we believe the future of the UK’s prosperity - as we leave the EU, and chart our own course for the 2020s and beyond – lies in making our nation a global science superpower.

Our future lies in those cutting-edge ideas, advanced technologies and rewarding new jobs that will power our economy and transform our society.

We recognise that, if we are to meet the global challenges that are facing us in this, the third decade of the twenty first century, the solution to some of our core ‘missions’ such as reducing our contribution to greenhouse gas emissions to Net Zero by 2050 - which I signed into law as Interim Energy Minister last summer - will be found in investing in R&D, new technologies and our world leading scientific expertise.

But this isn’t just about the money, or how it is spent. Where we choose to invest is of equal, critical importance. The Prime Minister has declared that this is a ‘One Nation’ government, committed to ‘levelling up’, so that every corner of the UK can benefit from its determination to share our future prosperity.

For science and innovation, we too need a ‘One Nation’ strategy for R&D.

2,500 days: no time for North versus South

Already, this government has begun to make significant investment across the UK. Consider our ‘Net Zero’ mission alone. We have won our bid to host the prestigious COP26 climate forum in Glasgow, the Offshore Renewable Catapult based in Northumberland and Glasgow grew its income by almost a half last year, and the Drax power station in Yorkshire begun its journey, driven by innovation in Carbon Capture and Storage, to be the world’s first carbon negative power plant.

Through the National Productivity Investment Fund, we are investing in the R&D, as well as national and local infrastructure, that will be crucial for economic growth. We are investing in our productivity at the highest sustained level in 40 years - £22 billion more a year in real terms than under the last Labour Government.

This already includes an additional £7 billion in R&D since 2016. New initiatives such as the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund and the Strength in Places Fund have been established, and amazing new projects are already underway.

From the £80 million automotive battery industrialisation centre in Coventry that will allow companies to quickly develop their capabilities to manufacture batteries and get them to market, to the £10 million Northern Pathology Imaging Collaborative in Leeds, which will use artificial intelligence to develop more intelligent analysis of medical imaging and diagnose diseases at an earlier stage.

And we have continued to invest in successful schemes like the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund, which last year invested in world-leading projects all over the UK, from the University of Leicester’s METEOR centre which will help us revolutionise satellite design and production, to the York Global Initiative for Safe Autonomy, which will address the challenges faced by the world-wide introduction of robotics and connected autonomous systems.

Yet we also know that during this time, we have seen the so-called ‘Golden Triangle’ continue to benefit disproportionately from public investment, compared with other regions of the UK.

Transparency in research funding is essential to begin to tackle this long-standing issue.

That’s why I have, as science and research minister, commissioned UKRI to publish new data today on how their investments are balanced across the regions. This is a first step on the way to greater transparency of where our money is going.

Better understanding, and a richer evidence base, will be critical to achieving our levelling up mission. And when we look at the data published by UKRI today, the headline stat is that 52% of the UK’s public investment into R&D goes to London, the South East, and East of England regions.

UKRI analysis: R&D Activity by Region 2017-18 (Footnote 1)

Region	Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD)	Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) %	Business Enterprise R&D (BERD)	Business Enterprise R&D (BERD)%
NUTS 1 Region	2017, £m	2017	2017, £m	2017
East Midlands	1,938	6%	1,521	6%
East of England	5,938	17%	4,677	20%
London	5,548	16%	2,796	12%
North East	707	2%	384	2%
North West	3,040	9%	2,174	9%
Northern Ireland	695	2%	512	2%
Scotland	2,529	7%	1,247	5%
South East	6,730	19%	4,860	21%
South West	2,334	7%	1,652	7%
Wales	744	2%	457	2%
West Midlands	2,965	9%	2,467	10%
Yorkshire and The Humber	1,641	5%	938	4%
United Kingdom	34,809	100%	23,685	100%

Source: GERD/BERD figures: ONS, Gross domestic expenditure on research and development, by region, UK

When I spoke last July about how we can increase R&D investment to 2.4% of GDP, I stated then, as I do again today, that we must ensure that our investments benefit the country as a whole, not just parts of it.

But, as I argued in that speech, if we look at the North East, for example, the level of R&D investment per person is way under half that of an equivalent Londoner.

And we know from the work that Richard Jones and Tom Forth have done, that it is the public investment that is lagging behind the private.

Analysis by Richard Jones: comparison of public to private R&D investment by region, per capita

Source: Used with permission from Jones, R. (2019) A Resurgence of the Regions: rebuilding innovation capacity across the whole UK. Working paper. Additional credit: Tom Forth, Eurostat.

In London, the government puts in 78 pence for every £1 of private money. But for every £1 of private investment in the West Midlands, the public contributes only 20 pence.

The data published by UKRI today will confirm this, and shows just how concentrated research funding has become.

For instance, in 2017 to 2018, London universities were awarded over £10,000 per researcher in QR funds. The figure is about half that size in the West Midlands or the North West.

UKRI analysis: Quality Related (QR) Research, Postgraduate Research Funding (PGR) and Research Excellence Grant (REG), academic year 2017/18

NUTS 1 Region	QR, PGR and REG Research Funding Allocated2017/18, AY, £m	QR, PGR and REG Research Funding per researcher approximation (£)	QR, PGR and REG Research Funding per research active university (£m)
East Midlands	101	6,078	11
East of England	165	8,753	16
London	476	10,080	12
North East	68	6,679	14
North West	146	5,755	10
Northern Ireland	49	10,339	12
Scotland	278	9,979	15
South East	291	8,517	15
South West	107	6,862	8
Wales	63	6,265	7
West Midlands	99	5,546	8
Yorkshire and The Humber	135	6,329	12
United Kingdom	1,978	7,916	12

Source: HESA (Footnote 2)

Tom Forth, a data scientist who I met in Leeds last week, has long argued that this is a grave misallocation of R&D spending, and that this misallocation is an important reason why the UK has done so badly at boosting economic growth in its poorest regions. (Source: Forth, T. (2018). Boosting R&D).

Now that we are increasing public investment into R&D, we have a chance to address these disparities, and I want us to seize it. We must ensure that more public R&D funding is being driven to places where, despite historic under-investment from the state, private investment has been flowing freely, and where it is ready to flow even faster.

Let me assure you that we make no apologies for investing in research excellence, and in our world leading research capabilities. We will continue to do so, as our commitment to existing excellence, and maintaining existing capabilities, remains undiminished.

Let me also state, for it is important to be clear, our historic commitment to double R&D funding means that we can end the zero-sum game of science funding.

We are not going to disinvest in our existing research and innovation ecosystem, created over decades of sustained and careful management.

In a sense, the ‘golden triangle’ narrative is profoundly an unhelpful one: placing geographic constraints on communities. Because the truth is that researchers themselves have always been good at collaborating across the country.

Just last week I was hearing about the work that Leeds university’s Bragg Centre is doing on advanced functional materials with Imperial College.

And we need only look at the Henry Royce Institute, with the hub at the University of Manchester, and spokes at the founding partners – the universities of Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool, Cambridge, Oxford and Imperial College London, as well as UKAEA and NNL.

So there is simply no room for a false, north-versus-south narrative, that cuts against the grain of what is working at the moment – the principle of subsidiarity, which we need to continue to foster. Because we need to put in place a true ‘one nation’ R&D strategy to complement, and ultimately fulfil, our 2.4% commitment – which is just over 2,500 days away.

Those 2,500 days will pass quickly.

We therefore need ALL of the UK pulling together, working at pace, both government, academia, and industry, if we are to reach 2.4%.

We also need to ensure, that our priorities are equally aligned, and that we are agreed upon a single direction of travel, a strategy that seeks not to divide, but to strengthen collaboration, to build networks, and to increase capacity and capability, wherever it exists.

Seeking to recognise where we are already world leaders, and where we have the potential to become world leading for the future.

That’s why we commissioned UKRI to publish their infrastructure opportunities report, which highlights the incredible potential in our national research infrastructures – in those cutting-edge facilities that, with the right investment for the future, will give a big boost to our research capability, right across the UK.

A key theme of the report, and a theme of my tenure as the UK’s Science Minister, is that our current and future success as a scientific powerhouse lies in strengthening and expanding our already impressive national capabilities.

In other words, it is in partnership with industry and academics in our existing research institutions and our existing universities, that we will deliver the uplift in the doubling of the R&D budget.

It will be by empowering existing institutions, and strengthening their collaborations, that we will have the maximum impact.

And it will only be through encouraging existing business and industry to invest in R&D, that we will also be able to meet 2.4% in 2,500 days.

And we need to renew our focus on people, to develop our pipeline of researchers and innovators that will be delivering the step-change, right across the country, in research and development-driven productivity.

Let me now turn to each aspect of this.

A northern R&D powerhouse

To start with, we must recognise that the so-called ‘MIT for the North’ is already staring us in the face.

It is right here in Durham, but also in Manchester, in Liverpool, in Newcastle, in Leeds, in Sheffield, Lancaster and York. It is in Sunderland and Hull, in Bradford and Salford – a constellation across the North that is already shining brightly.

Take our 30-plus universities in the North East, North West and Yorkshire and Humber regions. These universities, together, employ nearly 43,000 researchers. (Footnote 3)

Our northern universities have attracted research grants and contracts worth a total of £1.2 billion in 2017 to 2018 alone. (Footnote 4)

In 2016, universities in the North of England published the same number of highly cited papers as the whole of South Korea.

And per capita, Northern universities produced more academic research than the USA, Germany or France. (Footnote 5)

And just look at the N8 group of northern research-intensive universities. In 2017 to 2018, they secured more research funding from UKRI than Oxford and Cambridge combined. (Footnote 6)

This impressive strength of Northern research is also recognised internationally. We’re proud of major facilities like Jodrell Bank, where the global headquarters of the Square Kilometer Array will be situated.

And on Wednesday this week I met with the Director of the US Department of Energy to confirm our continued co-operation in a new underground high-energy physics facility, involving Northern universities including Durham, Lancaster and Warwick.

So yes, by any measure, the North has some of the very best universities in the world, just as George Osborne highlighted in his Northern Powerhouse speech back in 2014.

And yes, the collective capability of these world-leading universities is greater than the sum of its parts.

But I believe we can go even further – we can look to institutions outside the N8, to help them realise their potential in research and development.

Because it will be crucial, if we are to level up R&D funding, that we not only strengthen existing capacity in every corner of the UK, but also that we can support emerging excellence in universities and institutions that are growing their research capability.

We are determined to provide the funding and support to achieve this.

Already I have announced a record increase to Higher Education Innovation Funding, bringing it to £250 million per year, which will turbocharge universities’ knowledge exchange activities. We have launched the first round of the Expanding Excellence in England Fund, we’ve got the first phase of the Connecting Capabilities Fund up and running, and we’re already well into the second round of the Strength in Places Fund.

We are embarking on the largest ever expansion of university R&D right across the UK.

And when it comes to supporting and growing excellent university research departments all over the country, I fully recognise the value of QR.

Perhaps in the past, our focus on challenge-led funds masked a decline in that important mainstream of basic, curiosity-driven research.

But this isn’t about picking one type of research over another.

All should be lifted if we are to succeed.

Already last year I worked to deliver the first real terms increase in QR in England for over a decade. And I want to do so again this year.

But I also want to ensure that we are ‘levelling up’ university departments right across the country. Not just making it easier and quicker to apply for funding.

But critically, we need to think very carefully about how all of our schemes, including QR, can benefit existing institutions in all regions.

I am determined to support existing institutions, right across the country, to work with you to foster and build networks.

We can already see how universities are working together in networks like the N8 group of research-intensive institutions in the North, or Midlands Innovation, or GW4 in the South West.

I want us to build on these partnerships, to develop new alliances between existing universities, driving up collaboration, developing deeper partnerships with industry, and working together at scale.

And we are already seeing these collaborations flourish.

Not just within the North, but the North working with the South, and the East with the West.