By Andrew Mackenzie, Head of Policy and Communications, The Physiological Society
The Government’s Spending Review, due on 27 October, will be a pivotal day for the future of UK science. As the Government sets out its spending plans for the next 3 years we will find out whether the funding will be delivered to meet its aspirations for the UK to be a ‘science superpower’.
Countries across the world are investing heavily in R&D. While Germany is investing 3.2% of GDP in R&D and the US 3.1%, the UK is languishing at 1.7%. Even our target of 2.4% by 2027 is below the current OECD average of 2.5%. The US has committed an additional £250 billion to core science and technology budgets, and France has announced that the National Research Agency budget will treble by 2023. In comparison, the budget of the UK’s public research agency, UKRI, was cut last year.
The UK needs to keep up or it risks losing its competitive global advantage. Talented people will move to countries increasing their investment and the UK will miss out on innovation and research opportunities.
COVID-19 has shown how science, business and politics can work together to respond to a crisis. We know some of the unprecedented public health challenges we face: Long Covid, obesity, ageing, the climate crisis. They are challenging enough. But there will be many more we are not able to predict. We have to be ready. The lesson from COVID-19 is that our best defence is a robust, diverse science base we can call on.
But the strength of this research base cannot be taken for granted. Science cannot be turned on and off like a tap. Whether it is the vaccines or treatments, we saw from the pandemic that our ability to respond quickly to public health challenges requires building on years – or even decades – of research. UK R&D needs to be properly resourced and supported so that we can ensure science will be there when the world turns to it for answers.
The UK’s economic situation means government spending will be tight. There will be questions around whether we can now afford to increase R&D spending significantly. But looking at the last 18 months, the real question surely is, how can we afford not to?
Our five-point plan for a Spending Review to put science at the heart of the economic and health recovery from COVID-19:
Deliver on existing funding promises: Commit to £22 billion public investment into R&D by 2024/25, with a clear trajectory of even increases in next 4 years, and keep us on track to deliver the target of 2.4% of GDP by 2027.
The Government must stand by its commitments to increase public R&D spend by 2024/25 to £22 billion and keep us on track to reach at least 2.4% of GDP by 2027. Falling behind on this target would be a big blow for UK science – even if we meet it, we will still be below average and investing less as a proportion of GDP than countries such as Belgium.
R&D spending in the UK is split approximately 1/3 : 2/3 between the public and private sectors. Not only does the £22 billion of public spending represent a significant commitment by the taxpayer to science, it also unlocks the even larger private investment we need to reach 2.4%. The Campaign for Science and Engineering has calculated that a delay of just three years to reaching £22 billion would result in the UK losing £11 billion of private R&D investment. This would mean also the UK misses its 2.4% target.
Provide long term sustainability of funding: Increase quality-related research(QR) funding by 20% to counteract real terms fall since 2010.
QR funding constitutes the majority of funding for research in UK higher education institutions. However, it has been cut by around 17% in real terms since 2010. The Russell Group has produced evidence to show that QR funding relative to Research Council grant funding has decreased over time, from 80p in the pound in 2007, to 50p in the pound in 2018.
Boosting QR funding would help to protect jobs in our institutions and relieve pressure on our scientists and academics.
Secure research partnerships: Horizon Europe association costs must be guaranteed for programme lifetime and not result in cuts to existing research budgets.
Partnerships are the lifeblood of science. The scientific community welcomed the Government’s announcement that the UK would associate to Horizon Europe, however earlier this year there was concern that the association fee would result in cuts to existing research programmes. Thankfully, this didn’t happen for 2021/22 – but we still don’t have information on how the fee will be met in future years.
It is vital that the UK’s membership of Horizon Europe is guaranteed for the lifetime of the scheme, but this should not result in cuts to existing R&D budgets to pay for it.
Place knowledge exchange at heart of research system: Increase Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) to £500m per year by 2024/25 with a new Connecting Capability Fund (CCF) of £220m.
Our knowledge exchange (KE) report earlier this year, Translating Knowledge and Research into Impact, shone a spotlight on the contributions to KE made by physiology.
In line with the recommendation in our report to increase investment for knowledge exchange, we are calling for the HEIF to increase to £500 million by 2024/25 and for a new CCF of £220 million.
Build an evidence–led public health recovery following COVID-19:Establish a Post Pandemic Resilience Programme for older adults informed by the latest physiological evidence.
A recent report by Public Health England highlight that more older people are inactive as a result of the pandemic and lockdowns1. Public Health England modelling predicts that, without mitigation, 110,000 more older people will have a fall per year.
Building on a report we released in October 2020, we recommend the establishment of a National Post Pandemic Resilience Programme managed through the new Office for Health Promotion. This would be a ‘one stop shop’ for older adults, developed in partnership with physiologists and deploying the latest evidence to produce effective tailored advice on how to improve health post after the pandemic and support people to lead more physically active lives.