The chancellor first announced at the spending review in June record R&D investment of £86 billion for 2026-30. UKRI was allocated £38.6 billion. UKRI runs organisations including Innovate UK, which provides grants, loans and business support to innovative companies.
Announcing more details about how its budget will be spent, UKRI said the funding will be invested across three priority ‘buckets’:
- £8 billion on targeted R&D addressing national and societal priorities, including clean energy, health resilience and national security
- £7 billion to support innovative company growth, helping UK businesses scale and commercialise cutting-edge technologies
- £14 billion for the curiosity-driven research that underpins the UK R&D system
UKRI CEO Ian Chapman said:
“We’re aligning our budget to a new single mission, to advance knowledge, improve lives, and drive UK growth.
“Over the next four years, we will scale research and innovation investment to almost £10bn per year and target world-leading areas with the strongest return for the UK.”
Science and technology secretary Liz Kendall said:
“There is no route to stronger growth without science, technology and innovation, so we must grasp the opportunities our world class researchers and innovators offer with both hands.
“By doing fewer things better and backing winning ideas, this round of record UKRI funding can help more promising UK businesses to scale up while homing in on projects which have the best chance of benefiting us all.”
The funding will be allocated over the four year period as follows:
UKRI will set up programmes across buckets two and three, with a focus on the government’s eight priority high growth sectors: advanced manufacturing, clean energy, creative industries, defence, digital and tech, financial services, life sciences, and professional and business services.
It will be allocated across the sectors as follows:
The ‘wider priorities’ funding in the ‘supporting innovative companies’ bucket covers Innovate UK’s wider business support activities. UKRI said “further detail” will “follow in due course”.
Earlier this year, Innovate UK paused its Smart Grants programme which funded small businesses. It said it is working with “start-ups and SME communities in determining how we can better serve these businesses, through funding and other support products”.