Corporate report

BEIS research and development (R&D): partner organisation allocation 2022-2023 to 2024-2025

Updated 30 May 2022

This was published under the 2019 to 2022 Johnson Conservative government

This is an outline of how the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) will allocate its £39.8 billion research and development (R&D) budget to partner organisations for the financial years 2022-2023 through to 2024-2025. More detailed allocations, including split by UKRI council, will be published in due course.

The allocations reflect the government’s ambition to cement the UK as a science superpower and innovation nation by:

• strengthening our R&D system
• attracting and developing top research talent
• leveraging increased private sector investment
• utilising R&D funding to support levelling up across the UK

The investments will allow us to capitalise on the strengths of our world-leading R&D system and provide a clear path to growing the economy as we recover from the impact of the pandemic, whilst also supporting our commitment to achieve net zero by 2050 and deliver a green industrial revolution.

Government investment in R&D will rise across the spending review (SR) period, reaching £20 billion per annum by 2024-2025, an increase of more than £5 billion on 2021-2022. This record settlement will make significant progress towards meeting our target to increase total UK public and private R&D investment to 2.4% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2027.

The overall UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) allocation is over £25 billion across the SR period, providing UKRI with its first full, multi-year settlement across all parts of its budget. UKRI funding will reach over £8.8 billion in 2024-2025, its highest ever level. This investment will require strategic choices to enable UKRI to deliver an ambitious agenda through its 9 councils and support a vibrant research and innovation system that attracts private sector investment and drives up productivity across the UK. This allocation excludes funding which UKRI will deliver on behalf of BEIS through managed programmes.

This settlement reflects that unleashing innovation is a top priority for government and is at the heart of our plan for growth. The 2021 Innovation Strategy outlined how we can support businesses to innovate by making the most of the UK’s research, development, and innovation system. To support delivery on the 4 pillars of the Innovation Strategy, we are increasing funding for core Innovate UK programmes by 66% to £1.1 billion in 2024-2025. This will further help connect companies to the capital, skills and connections needed to innovate and grow, ensuring our status as leading innovation nation.

Via BEIS Programmes we will invest in net zero R&D and sector-specific programmes. More information on the breakdown of this funding will be published in due course. This also takes into account the £800 million by 2025-2026 allocated for the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA). ARIA will carry out high-risk, high-reward research to enable scientists to identify and fund transformational science and technology across the UK at pace.

BEIS has allocated £6.8 billion over the SR towards Horizon Europe and other EU programmes allowing UK researchers and business to participate in the world’s largest collaborative research and innovation programme, and stands ready to formalise our participation to the terms agreed under the UK-EU Trade Cooperation Agreement published in December 2020 at the earliest opportunity.

In the event that the UK is unable to associate to Horizon Europe, the funding allocated to Horizon association will go to UK government R&D programmes, including those to support new international partnerships. We will set out further information in due course.

Table 1: BEIS partner organisation R&D allocation plans 2022/2023 to 2024/2025 ^{[footnote 1]}

Organisation or programme	2022/2023 (£m)	2023/2024 (£m)	2024/2025 (£m)	Total (£m)
UK Research & Innovation [footnote 2]	7,908	8,373	8,865	25,146
UK Space Agency [footnote 3]	553	595	602	1,750
UK Atomic Energy Authority [footnote 4]	233	261	215	708
National Academies [footnote 5]	207	212	215	634
Met Office [footnote 6]	235	296	266	797
National Measurement System	116	130	129	375
BEIS Programmes [footnote 7]	3,798	3,866	3,894	11,558
of which Advanced Research & Invention Agency [footnote 8]	125	150	200	475
of which Government Office for Science	16	16	16	49
of which Nuclear Decommissioning Authority	205	209	214	628
of which UK Contribution to EU Programmes [footnote 9]	2,349	2,321	2,113	6,783
Total SR21 Allocation	11,851	13,732	14,186	39,769
Total allocation after 2021-2022 Budget transfer [footnote 10]	13,049	13,732	14,186	40,967

Footnotes / disclaimers

1. Allocation numbers indicate planned budget for 2022-2023 through to 2024-2025. ↩

2. All programmed official development assistance (ODA) sits with BEIS Programmes in this allocation table, but it is expected that a significant proportion of this ODA spend will be delivered through UKRI. ↩

3. Includes European Space Agency (ESA) subscriptions funding. UK Space Agency (UKSA) allocation includes funding ringfenced for a Space Clusters & Infrastructure Fund, with strategic decision-making informed by BEIS. ↩

4. UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) funding decreases in 2024-2025 due to the planned transition from Joint European Torus (JET) operations to decommissioning in 2024 and the completion of the Fusion Foundations programme in 2024-2025. ↩

5. Academies figures represent the core non-ODA allocation. ↩

6. Met Office funding decreases in 2024-2025 due to the profiled spend of the new Met Office Supercomputer. ↩

7. BEIS has an ODA R&D budget allocation of £301 million per annum, which includes a target to ensure £90 million per annum of core R&D spend is ODA eligible. £211 million per annum ODA allocation will be spent through ODA funds that are delivered by various partner organisations. This breakdown is not yet known, therefore programmed ODA funding of £211 million per annum has been listed under ‘BEIS Programmes’ but will later be allocated to partner organisations. ↩

8. ARIA has been allocated £800 million from 2021-2022 to 2025-2026. This includes £300 million in 2025-2026 not set out in this table. ↩

9. This includes funding the United Kingdom’s contribution to EU programmes including Horizon Europe and Euratom Research and Training. We will pay a fair share towards Horizon Europe and other EU programmes such as Euratom Research and Training, the terms of which are set out in the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement. The exact annual cost will vary depending on factors including whether the UK is excluded from any parts of the programme, GDP and foreign exchange rate considerations. We expect to pay costs in 2022-2023 that cover 2021-2022, but the exact amount is yet to be finalised. At Supplementary Estimate, HMT agreed to transfer funding from 2021-2022 into 2022-2023 due to association not yet being finalised. We expect the funding set aside to cover these costs, subject to securing a rebate for the guarantee costs for calls we have missed. Under the terms of the agreement with the EU, we do not pay for any parts of the programme we are unable to access. ↩

10. HMT agreed to transfer £1,198 million of the 2021-2022 budget into 2022-2023. ↩