Independent report

Review of research bureaucracy: terms of reference

Updated 9 February 2024

The Prime Minister’s package of science announcements on 27 January 2020 included:

…launching a major review of research bureaucracy and methods, including unnecessary paperwork, arduous funding applications and research selection processes. This will free up and support the best researchers to focus on ground-breaking, ambitious and meaningful research…

Unnecessary bureaucracy diverts and hampers research, and the work of individual researchers and research teams, and diminishes returns from research funding.

While data can help us understand what we are achieving and how we can best support high quality research and impact, our starting point is that the bureaucracy imposed by government, funders and universities is too great and should be reduced, with significant consequent benefits for all actors in the system.

Further, we share the concerns of many in the research community that the balance between individual judgement and formal assurance and monitoring mechanisms has tipped too far in the direction of the latter, with significant bureaucracy now impeding the research process itself. We want to empower researchers and innovators to act with the flexibility, time, and purpose needed to pursue creative and ambitious research directions.

The Minister for Science, Research and Innovation has commissioned Professor Adam Tickell, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sussex, to lead this review. The overarching goal of this review is to advise on a substantial reduction in unnecessary research bureaucracy in government and the wider sector, supporting our researchers to focus on research and related activities which contribute to a healthy research base.

Our ambition is to reduce research bureaucracy so that only essential elements remain, resulting in a major improvement in the quality of the working lives of individuals and teams conducting research.

The goals of the review will be to:

1. Identify the reasons behind real and perceived growth in research bureaucracy over recent decades, learning lessons from the past while challenging our collective assumptions about what is really necessary

2. Identify a wide range of specific reductions in overall research bureaucracy and in the bureaucratic tasks that researchers themselves undertake, which will be for government, funders and research organisations to consider and implement; they should consider objective measures of success from the point of view of frontline research staff

3. Ensure that government can continue to fulfil the requirement at an appropriate level of aggregation that can demonstrate impact and value for public money spent on research and provide evidence to support efficient and effective future investment

4. Support the wider UK research system to work more productively through this review

5. Identify effective funding models, processes and infrastructure, whether existing or new, that will support the UK research environment to be more dynamic, diverse and transparent

6. Ensure mandatory national security considerations and the protections in Trusted Research are embedded in research.

This review and its outputs will support the goals of the government’s Research and Development Roadmap.

Purpose and scope

The review will identify and tackle unnecessary bureaucracy and its causes from a system-wide perspective. Measures of the success of the review and its implementation will be:

• the resource spent by government and research organisations on administering the grant system should be proportionate and value for money
• a significant reduction in unnecessary reporting and monitoring systems within institutions and the wider system, maintaining only those that add value to our system, and with all parties accepting the resultant reduction in tracking of spending and impact
• a clear refocusing of remaining bureaucracy onto the highest priority areas – including to enable a broad range of excellent research, to reward and incentivise diverse career progression, to promote a culture of transparency and research integrity, and to demonstrate impact so we can make a long-term case for investment in research and innovation

The review will recognise that all parties - government, funders, higher education institutions and research organisations - need to play their full part in this agenda. The aim should be to reduce bureaucracy, not move it to another part of the system.

The review will focus primarily on Higher Education Institutions and research organisations. Research undertaken by businesses, beyond university-business R&D interaction, is enormously important but outside the scope of this review.

The review will build on initiatives already being undertaken by funding bodies and research organisations, including UK Research and Innovation’s ‘Reforming Our Business’ programme, and informing the forthcoming review of the Research Excellence Framework.

Timescale

We envisage the review producing interim findings around autumn 2021, and then final conclusions available by early 2022.

Governance and reporting

Professor Tickell will report to the Minister for Science, Research and Innovation, and be supported by a Challenge Panel with diverse representation from across the research system.