Here at Fundermentals Towers we love a new strategy. All those grand statements, bold aspirations, and, well, fairly empty promises. We’ve written before about the challenge of writing anything more than a ‘vanilla’ strategy, and frankly I’m not sure whether UKRI has succeeded in providing a rasperry ripple with its 2022-27 Strategy. Still, it’s important in setting the course for the UK’s primary research and innovation funder for the next five years. Having read all 53 pages, here are our take-home messages.
- This is UKRI responding to the Government’s agenda. A range of policies and strategies are name-checked, from the R&D Roadmap, Plan for Growth, R&D People and Culture Strategy, Integrated Review, Levelling Up. Is Haldane dead? Not necessarily, but clearly a political agenda at work here – including a slightly needy desire to work closely with the National Science and Technology Council – by which we assume they mean the Council for Science and Technology, chaired by Pat Vallance and Lord Browne (and not the PM).
- There’s nothing very surprising. In all, there are four principles, six objectives, 16 priorities. There’s nothing not to like here, from the principles of diversity and engagement, to the objectives that include people and careers, place, ideas and innovation. Of those, R&D is perhaps the least surprising. After all, the clue’s in the name of UKRI, right? The people and places objectives are perhaps more novel and interesting.
- It’s worth digging into the priorities. Here there is a little more meat on the bone, but we still need to wait for both the delivery plans of UKRI and the individual research councils later in the year to understand what they mean in practice. So, within these priorities, here are some interesting take-home messages:
- There’ll be new funding for postgraduate research and fellowship programmes to attract, develop and retain the world’s best researchers (1.1)
- There’ll be a new UK Committee on Research Integrity (UK CORI) to promote and support high integrity in research (1.3)
- Dual support is safe and well. This bodes well (or badly, depending on your perspective) for future REFs. (call-out box in 2)
- There’ll be funding for levelling up, including support for ‘the development of evidence to inform local, regional and national policies and interventions to address regional disparities and enhance place-based livelihoods and economies.’ There’s also mention of ‘engaging with place-based actors and communities to help shape our work and, where relevant and where it can add value, factoring place considerations into our decision-making.’ (2.1)
- There’ll be a renewed international strategic framework, which is interesting, given the recent cuts to ODA funding. (2.1, and call-out box in 3)
- They want to be more agile and flexible, both in its processes (6.2) but also its funding schemes, and talk positively about risk-taking and having a willingness to ‘fail as well as…flourish.’ (3.1)
- Interdisciplinarity is central. As per. (3.2)
- Innovation, innovation, innovation. Innovation has been prioritised in pretty much all of the Government’s recent strategies and policies in this area. Here, UKRI will, ahem, ‘harness the full power of Innovate UK to lead a pro-innovation charge.’ Which is a very Johnsonian phrase (4.1, 4.2). There’s also some further ‘harnessing’ in 5.2, this time of ‘opportunities from tomorrow’s technologies’, which were outlined originally in the Innovation Strategy as seven technology families. These are: advanced materials and manufacturing; AI, digital and advanced computing; bioinformatics and genomics; engineering biology; electronics, photonics and quantum technologies; energy, environmental and climate technologies; and robotics and smart machines.
- There are grand challenges. Ah! Grand Challenges. Hello again. So there are five strategic themes that identify particular areas of interest (5.1), for which they will ‘develop new funding opportunities for multidisciplinary programmes’:
- Building a green future
- Securing better health, ageing and wellbeing
- Tackling infections, including, interestingly, food supply and natural capital
- Building a secure and resilient world
- Creating opportunities, improving outcomes, by which they mean ‘place-based disparities’ – again
- There’s a strong STEM narrative. Yes, there’s a nod to the arts and humanities (one of the case studies references Clwstwr, part of the AHRC Creative Industries Clusters Programme) and to the social sciences (particularly in responding to global challenges and levelling up), but STEM is where it’s at. In that hackneyed old truism, pictures speak a thousand words: of the 28 in the Strategy, 18 are obviously STEM (including four with smiling people in lab coats); six are office/meeting stock photos, three are headshots, and just one focuses – possibly – on the arts and humanities. It’s a woman in some kind of Bladerunner-y future with what appear to be bionic arms – which might still be STEM, of course.
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels