‘Recommit’ to QR research funding, Imperial president urges UK

The steady real-terms erosion of quality-related (QR) research funds could hurt the UK government’s plans for a science-led industrial strategy, a university leader has warned.

In his annual president’s address at Imperial College London, Hugh Brady highlighted the important role of QR block grants – worth about £2 billion annually to UK universities and awarded on the basis of Research Excellence Framework results – in supporting scientific research.

Brady explained how QR was “the envy of our international competitors” as “it gives UK scientists the stability and flexibility they need to take risks, to try new things and test new ideas, and it gives universities the funding to make strategic investments in new technologies and facilities”.

“I know, I used to be one of those competitors,” said the former Harvard University medical researcher, who also led University College Dublin from 2004 to 2013.

Brady explained that Imperial received about £58 million a year in QR funding, which was used to support several of its major research labs, including the Molecular Sciences Research Hub, the Future Vaccines Manufacturing Research Hub and the Faraday Cage at the Centre for Cryo-Microscopy of Materials, which is testing environmentally sensitive materials.

“Investments like these are the foundations of the whole science sector. We simply do not know where the next great scientific discovery will come from,” said Brady, adding that there was “ample evidence that the UK’s current strengths – in areas such as biosciences, vaccine development, engineering biology, cleantech and quantum – can in large part be explained by the flexibility QR funding gives researchers”.

“QR funding produces genuine discoveries,” the Irish-born scientist continued, adding that “discoveries become technologies and products” which “become businesses, and businesses are the engine of growth”.

However, Brady said he was concerned over the state of the “dual support” model in which project-specific grants are funded competitively alongside “a second pillar of strategic institutional funding” largely supported by QR.

“Why am I concerned? Because QR funding has fallen by 16 per cent in real terms since 2010. This threatens the very foundations of British science,” said Brady, who led University of Bristol before moving to Imperial in 2022.

His comments come as the Department for Science and Innovation is finalising UKRI’s budget for 2025-26, amid concerns that some research councils could see their budgets squeezed. The core budget for Research England – which allocates QR funding – rose from £1.8 billion in 2022-23 to £2.3 billion in 2024-25, an increase of about 28 per cent over a three-year period, though in the period inflation hit 11 per cent in some months.

In his speech, Brady acknowledged that the open-ended nature of QR funding made it “harder to justify than targeted research into – say – a cure for cancer” when “finances are tight” but he nonetheless believed it was essential for economic growth given its link to breakthrough science.

“The UK should not take its scientists for granted. In order to attract and retain world-leading researchers and in order to enable them to do their best work the industrial strategy must recommit to excellence-based research funding and get the funding mix right,” said Brady, noting how the science and technology sectors contributed £164 billion to the UK economy last year.

In his address, Brady also noted how the UK invested about 3 per cent of its gross domestic product into research and development, while Germany “whose economy is as sluggish as ours” was targeting 3.5 per cent. At the same time, China and the US are massively increasing research spending, he said.

“Our 3 per cent is a sign that we need to do more,” he said, adding that science spending in recent years has “failed to keep pace with inflation and we’re falling behind our competitors”.

Stating UK universities were “ready as a sector” to help with national economic growth plans, he concluded: “We’re ready to make Britain a science and tech superpower. Universities want ‘to be useful’. So use us.”

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com