114
Accepted
Professor Chris Pearce, University of Glasgow, told us that medical research charities are having to...
Conclusion
Professor Chris Pearce, University of Glasgow, told us that medical research charities are having to scale back because of a loss of donations due to the pandemic, and that this will lead to a “significant drop in charity funding for our research”.257 He went on to say that the “estimates of the shortfall over the next year are staggering, hundreds of millions of pounds, all of which is typically going into critical biomedical research”.258 Professor Pearce said that what was needed was a “long-term and stable solution for funding biomedical research that is not wholly reliant or largely dependent on the charity funding that we have at the moment”.259 UK Government R&D Roadmap
Government Response Summary
The government responds by committing to a significant uplift in public R&D spending, reaching £20 billion per annum by 2024/25, which aims to provide a long-term and stable solution for research funding, reducing reliance on charity donations impacted by the pandemic.
Government Response
Accepted
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The 2021 Spending Review set out the government’s plan to cement the UK as a global science and technology superpower and demonstrates our commitment to delivering on the R&D Roadmap and the Innovation Strategy. The UK Government is providing the fastest ever sustained uplift in research and development (R&D) funding, increasing public spending on R&D to £20 billion per annum in 2024/25—£5 billion more than 2021/22, an increase of around a quarter in real terms over the Spending Review period. This represents a significant uplift against one of the most challenging fiscal positions of the last century and provides certainty to our R&D partners of government plans for the next three years. This will help the whole R&D sector plan ahead, which will be particularly welcome given recent fiscal challenges from Covid. This settlement will make significant progress towards the government’s ambition to increase public R&D spending to £22 billion by 2026/27, and drive economy-wide R&D investment to 2.4% of GDP in 2027. As the custodian of the R&D system, BEIS has been allocated £39.8 billion for R&D over the Spending Review period, the largest ever R&D budget committed to BEIS or its predecessors. During the Spending Review 2020, the UK Government took the difficult decision to reduce ODA spending target from the current 0.7% of GNI to 0.5% of GNI in 2021/22. The 2021/22 R&D ODA SR settlement reflected extraordinary challenges—the fiscal impact of Covid-19 on the UK economy and the overall ODA budget. The UK, however, remains a world leading aid funder, having committed over £11 billion of ODA in 2022/23 to fight poverty, tackle climate change, and improve global health. In light of the government’s careful stewardship of public finances and the strength of the recovery, the Spending Review 2021 set aside provision to take ODA funding to 0.7% of GNI in 2024/25, should the fiscal situation allow. This delivers on the government’s commitment made to Parliament to return to spending 0.7% of GNI on ODA when, on a sustainable basis, we are not borrowing for current spending and underlying debt is falling.
Source
Committee
Scottish Affairs Committee
Inquiry
Universities and Scotland
Report
First Report - Universities and Scotland
28 May 2021
HC 54
Addressee Bodies
Scotland Office
Timeline
Recommendation age
5.2 yrs
Report published
28 May 2021