Category: Consultation

The 2016 Autumn Statement provided an extra £2 billion a year for the science budget by the end of the Spending Review period, including funding for an Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. In 2017, the Government committed to “meet the current OECD average for investment in R&D—2.4% of GDP—within ten years, with a longer-term goal of 3%”.

The Industrial Strategy Green Paper, in January 2017, included proposals for an ‘Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund’ and envisaged sectors making the case for ‘sector deals’. The Government has since announced the first investments from the fund, including the Faraday Challenge for battery development focusing on electric vehicle applications.

The Green Paper also highlighted a Government review of practices of universities’ Technology Transfer Offices; an independent Review of the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) by David Connell; a possible expansion of the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) or of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships; the “importance of place”, with “increasing our focus on commercialisation and later stage development … likely to increase the opportunities for catch-up in more parts of the country”; a “review of government and research council laboratories and their potential to drive local economic growth”.

More recently, the Government announced plans for a ‘Knowledge Exchange Framework’ to compare universities’ engagement with businesses; a third wave of ‘Science and Innovation Audits’ to map local research, innovation, and infrastructure strengths; and allocations from a ‘Connecting Capability Fund’.

UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) will be operational from April 2018. It will bring together bodies that are currently separately responsible for research and innovation spending.

The Committee would welcome written submissions, ideally by Monday 30 October, on:

• The coherence and links between the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund and the ‘sector deals’;
• The model adopted by the Faraday Challenge and its suitability for future investments in other sectors under the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund;
• The rationale and coherence for the distribution of funding:

• between the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (and its individual ISCF schemes) and the rest of the Science budget;
• between the various initiatives to financially support innovation and commercialisation of research;
• between the two arms of the ‘dual support’ system—funding via the research councils and funding via Research England;
• between innovation and research.

• The balance between different parts of the country in Government funding of research/innovation, the effectiveness of such place-based financial support, and how planned place-based funding might affect that balance in future;
• What further measures the Government should take to use its spending and facilities to strengthen innovation, research and associated ‘place’-based growth.

Submitting written evidence

Submit written evidence via our inquiry page.

The personal information you supply will be processed in accordance with the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 for the purposes of attributing the evidence you submit and contacting you as necessary in connection with its processing. The Clerk of the House of Commons is the data controller for the purposes of the Act. We may also ask you to comment on the process of submitting evidence via the web portal so that we can look to make improvements. If you have any queries or concerns about the collection and use of this information or do not wish your details to be used for the purpose of collecting feedback, please advise the Committee at scitechcom@parliament.uk providing your full name, address, and if relevant your organisation.

Each submission should:

1. a) be in Word format with as little use logos as possible
   b) have numbered paragraphs
   b) include a declaration of interests.

Please note that:

• Material already published elsewhere should not form the basis of a submission, but may be referred to within a proposed memorandum, in which case a hard copy of the published work should be included.
• Memoranda submitted must be kept confidential until published by the Committee, unless publication by the person or organisation submitting it is specifically authorised.
• Once submitted, evidence is the property of the Committee. The Committee normally, though not always, chooses to make public the written evidence it receives, by publishing it on the internet (where it will be searchable), by printing it or by making it available through the Parliamentary Archives. If there is any information you believe to be sensitive you should highlight it and explain what harm you believe would result from its disclosure. The Committee will take this into account in deciding whether to publish or further disclose the evidence.
• Select Committees are unable to investigate individual cases.

More information on submitting evidence to Select Committees.

 

Further Information is here.

Follow us on Twitter: @CommonsSTC

 

Inquiry page is here.

Committee Membership is here.

Specific Committee information: scitechcom@parliament.uk / 020 7219 2793

Media Information: Sean Kinsey kinseys@parliament.uk / 020 7219 5012 / 07917 488791