UK Government Announces 10-year R&D Funding Budgets
Written by Finbarr Toesland Thu 22 May 2025
The UK Science Minister, Lord Vallance, has announced a 10-year research and development budget that is intended to ensure essential R&D can take place in innovative areas like cutting-edge computing. In industries where projects can take years and years to complete, shifting from predominantly annual budgets to as long as a decade is expected to help enable new initiatives to start that drive innovation.
With every £1 ($1.34) invested into public R&D, both leveraging £2 ($2.6) in private investment and generating £7 ($9.3) in net benefits to the UK economy, this commitment is expected to unlock high levels of economic value.
“Research and innovation, from computing and AI to health breakthroughs, need stability of funding,” said UK Science Minister, Lord Vallance. “We are delivering on our manifesto commitment to support and encourage public bodies to deliver long-term ten-year funding streams where appropriate, while retaining the flexibility of shorter-term cycles to deal with emerging priorities.”
Quantum and AI Expected Among Priority Areas
Launched as part of the Plan for Change announced by the Government, the exact areas of funding will be disclosed in the next few weeks, with developing quantum computers expected to be one of the potential targets for longer-term funding.
For Dr Alicia Greated, Executive Director, Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE), this new funding is a long time coming.
“A common thread across many recent CaSE reports and our analysis has been the call for the UK Government to provide a long-term sustainable policy platform that allows the R&D sector to thrive,” said Dr Greated.
To ensure transparency in the funding process, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has collaborated with the UK Treasury to create clear principles for the ten-year funding. The criteria for this funding will revolve around four key areas, namely infrastructure, talent attraction, international collaboration and business collaboration.
Written by Finbarr Toesland Thu 22 May 2025