Chuka Umunna

All of the Grand Challenges relate either to the Eight Great Technologies and/or to objectives published in the Science and Innovation Strategy December 2014.

Neither ministers nor officials from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills have issued any guidance to Research Councils on grant funding application deadlines since May 2015.

Neither ministers nor officials from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills have had any recent discussions with Research Councils on grant funding application deadlines. Deadlines for individual funding calls are a matter for the Research Councils or other funding partners where involved.

In April 2014 BIS published the findings of the Triennial Review of the Research Councils, which examined their form, function and governance. In December 2014 the Government commissioned Sir Paul Nurse to examine how Research Councils can evolve to support research in the most effective ways.

The final figure on the number of Growth Vouchers issued is available now. This was provided in the response to Written Question UIN 9284. The final figure is 19,713.

The Government identified “8 Great Technologies” in autumn 2012 to highlight key emerging technologies for the UK and increased investment by £600 million to accelerate their application and commercialisation.

The table provides a non-exclusive list of projects and programmes funded by BIS through Research Councils and InnovateUK relating to the “8 Great Technologies” from the time of publication to January 2015.

We do not routinely keep records classifying all publically-funded projects and programmes since 2010 according to the 8 Great Technologies, and it would only be possible to provide this information at a disproportionate cost.

Big Data:

Satellites and Commercial Applications of Space:

Robotics and Autonomous Systems:

Synthetic Biology:

Regenerative Medicine

Agri-Science

Advanced Materials:

Energy Storage:

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is currently neither reviewing nor evaluating rules on company takeovers.

There are four pieces of work where McKinsey have been providing assistance to the Department:

• operating costs across the Department and Partner Organisations;
• the cost of goods and services procured from third parties, led by the Crown Commercial Service;
• a review of the Student Loans Company; and
• cost drivers in Further Education, jointly with the Department for Education and Her Majesty’s Treasury.

There are no McKinsey employees working directly on the Department’s Spending Review.

The Department has consulted with our key Partner Organisations during the Spending Review process and Her Majesty’s Treasury have undertaken a public consultation on the Spending Review which closed on 4^th September.

There are four pieces of work where McKinsey have been providing assistance to the Department:

• operating costs across the Department and Partner Organisations;
• the cost of goods and services procured from third parties, led by the Crown Commercial Service;
• a review of the Student Loans Company; and
• cost drivers in Further Education, jointly with the Department for Education and Her Majesty’s Treasury.

There are no McKinsey employees working directly on the Department’s Spending Review.

The Department has consulted with our key Partner Organisations during the Spending Review process and Her Majesty’s Treasury have undertaken a public consultation on the Spending Review which closed on 4^th September.

All Grand Challenges Fund projects are subject to detailed business cases in accordance with HM Treasury requirements. The projects are evaluated by analytical, finance and project specialists within BIS, and the relevant Research Council.

Evidence underpinning the “Eight Great Technologies” was set out in the Eight Great Technologies pamphlet accompanying David Willetts’ speech of the 24^th of January 2013 [Eight Great Technologies, David Willetts, Policy Exchange 2013].

Projects that form part of the Grand Challenges programme are supported from the £6.9 billion science capital budget, which was subject to a public consultation launched in December 2014.

Innovate UK and the Research Councils work together to explore and develop new approaches for moving potentially high impact technologies more rapidly from the research base into commercial reality.

This information is not available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

Good progress has been made in relation to the Grand Challenges Fund, with approved business cases enabling numerous projects to start. For example the Hartree Centre at Daresbury, a ground-breaking collaboration between IBM and the Science and Technology Facilities Council, has leveraged in £200m of IBM investment to work on data centric and cognitive computing.

All projects forming part of the Grand Challenges Fund were announced subject to detailed business cases in accordance with published HM Treasury requirements. All projects falling within the fund are receiving support from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Research Councils.

The Government has commissioned Sir Paul Nurse to lead an independent review of the Research Councils. As part of the review, there was an open call for evidence which received over 250 responses. Sir Paul is supported by Advisory and Reference Groups representing a range of academic disciplines, universities, business and HE organisations as well as the Research Councils themselves.

The main assessment criteria for deciding priorities for the list of 8 Great Technologies were:

a. The technology has to be an important area of scientific advance;

b. Britain has to have a distinctive capability in this area; and,

c. the technology should have reached the stage where identifiable commercial opportunities are emerging.

These criteria were published, together with additional evidence and analysis, in the pamphlet accompanying David Willetts’ speech of the 24th of January 2013 [Eight Great Technologies, David Willetts, Policy Exchange 2013]:

Projects and programmes under the 8 Great Technologies banner are subject to their own evaluation processes as appropriate.

The Grand Challenges assessment criteria were published as part of a public consultation document in May 2014 (these being: excellence, affordability, impact, skills and leverage). Along with the published consultation criteria, additional criteria such as value for money and deliverability are used to assess Grand Challenge projects.

The Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) and HEFCE are two separate organisations. The ECU employs 28.2 full-time equivalent staff and HEFCE employs 242 full-time equivalent staff.

At present there are 4 Met Office staff on secondment to Government departments and agencies and 10 seconded to other publicly-funded bodies.

No Met Office staff are on secondment to the armed forces. At present 52 staff are members of the Mobile Met Unit, a sponsored RAF reserve unit of meteorological specialists. There are 192 Met Office staff based at military sites in the UK and overseas.

A large number of Government and publicly‑funded bodies subscribe to Met Office services. Revenue from this sector in 2014-15 was approximately £187m, broken down as follows: (a) Public Weather Service - £114m (b) Defence - £33m and (c) Government strategic sectors - £40m. The terms of service provision are subject to periodic review and renegotiation.

Commercial revenue was £33m in 2014-15.

Met Office expenditure on research and development is detailed in its annual report and accounts. The amount spent in the last 5 years is set out below.

UK contributions to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts since 2010/11 are set out below. The annual contribution is likely to be within a similar range in future. These contributions are met through the Public Weather Service budget which is primarily funded by my Department.

The BBC’s decision not to shortlist the Met Office for its next contract was a commercial decision by the BBC and was communicated by Met Office to my officials and myself as soon as they became aware that they were not being selected for the next stage of the procurement. The ending of the contract in autumn 2016 is not expected to have significant budgetary implications.

Since the communication of the decision I and my officials have been in dialogue with the Met Office and colleagues elsewhere in government in connection with National Severe Weather Warning service, and in turn with the BBC. The Weather Services Agreement between the Met Office and BBC does not include a research element.

The Met Office collaborates with a number of universities and research organisations in the UK and overseas to advance the science and skills in meteorology, climate science and related subjects. This involves the placement of scientists between the Met Office and these bodies. Visits can be for short or longer periods of time, but are not generally recorded as formal secondments. During 2014-15, 149 scientists were recorded as visiting the Met Office for collaborative purposes. Extensive collaboration also takes place in the writing of scientific papers.

Met Office records of current and previous formal secondments to universities and research organisations are shown in the table below. It has no record of inward secondments from these organisations in the last 5 years.

The Medical Research Council (MRC) is one of the main agencies through which the Government supports medical and clinical research.

The most recent information available on the MRC’s expenditure on cancer research is set out in the table. The data includes research into the biology, causes, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer as well as research on outcomes. A breakdown showing expenditure on research directly related to treatment is not currently available.

Source: National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Research Database (calendar year figures).

A large number of Government and publicly‑funded bodies subscribe to Met Office services. Revenue from this sector in 2014-15 was approximately £187m, broken down as follows: (a) Public Weather Service - £114m (b) Defence - £33m and (c) Government strategic sectors - £40m. The terms of service provision are subject to periodic review and renegotiation.

Commercial revenue was £33m in 2014-15.

Met Office expenditure on research and development is detailed in its annual report and accounts. The amount spent in the last 5 years is set out below.

The decision was taken by the Prime Minister and communicated in May 2015 to merge the functions of the Shareholder Executive and UK Financial Investments (UKFI) in to a new wholly-owned Government Company, UK Government Investments (UKGI). Discussions with staff also began in May and will continue until the transition is complete.

The new company will make it easier for government experts to work together to deliver the sale of a wide range of publicly-owned assets in a way that secures good value for money for taxpayers. It will help the government achieve its aim of running large, publicly-owned delivery bodies more efficiently, as well as learning from private sector expertise in improving the performance of taxpayer-owned assets not being sold.

UKGI will be established in the autumn, with the intention of completing any transfer activity for the start of the next financial year.

The BBC’s decision not to shortlist the Met Office for its next contract was a commercial decision by the BBC and was communicated by Met Office to my officials and myself as soon as they became aware that they were not being selected for the next stage of the procurement. The ending of the contract in autumn 2016 is not expected to have significant budgetary implications.

Since the communication of the decision I and my officials have been in dialogue with the Met Office and colleagues elsewhere in government in connection with National Severe Weather Warning service, and in turn with the BBC. The Weather Services Agreement between the Met Office and BBC does not include a research element.

The Newton Fund was launched in April 2014. In the first year of the fund (FY14/15) the following awards were made:

a) 287 Fellowships

b) 1164 other awards

The Government Office for Science Foresight programme is directed by Sir Mark Walport, Government Chief Scientific Advisor. Foresight projects examine either an important public policy issue where science might be part of the solution, or a scientific topic where potential applications and technologies are yet to be realised. Foresight’s two current projects are 'Future of an ageing population' and ‘Future of cities’. The Government Office for Science actively considers topics for future projects, and welcomes suggestions.

The Sciencewise programme like all other areas of spend is subject to the Spending Review and future budget allocations will be based on the outcome of the review.

The Department currently uses the GDP deflators published by the Treasury to remove the effect of inflation from research and development (R&D) spending. The Office for National Statistics carried out some work to develop an R&D deflator; however, this work did not include a forward looking deflator so was not suitable for applying to future expenditure. We have not commissioned any research, but continue to monitor new developments in this area.

The Chief Scientific Advisers work across departments in partnership with policy makers to ensure the very best in scientific evidence is used in the policy process. Where posts are unfilled, the Government Office for Science works with departments to ensure they have access to the relevant expertise and evidence. The table below contains the current position on CSAs.

A table that sets out the externally commissioned evaluations for DECC since 2010-11 is attached below.

As of 8 September, 6,731 vouchers had been redeemed with total value over £11m.

Provision was made for businesses to redeem their voucher after the expiry date if the delay was beyond their control.

I have asked the Medical Research Council to respond directly to the Hon Member.

The scheme is now closed for applications and the programme is in the evaluation stage. Two initial result reports have been published online at gov.uk and the next report will be published later this year.

Meetings and attendance details for the Council for Science and Technology can be found here - https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/council-for-science-and-technology/about/our-governance

We required at least 19,000 businesses to complete a business needs assessment (either online or face-to-face) to provide robust evidence gathering under the programme. 27,117 businesses completed this assessment. There was no threshold set for the number of vouchers used.

The following expenditure has occurred and is planned on the HEFCE UK Research Partnership Investment Fund:

The detailed expenditure profile for the additional £400m for expenditure out to 2021 for UK RPIF, announced in Budget 2015, will be announced in due course.

The scheme is now closed for applications and the programme is in the evaluation stage. Two initial result reports have been published online at gov.uk and the next report will be published later this year.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has provided grant support of £32M to support three programmes; ASTRAEA 1 and 2 and 3A since 2006.

In 2015, the ASTRAEA consortium applied for additional support for a £55M collaborative programme via the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI), requesting a £26M grant. The application was not approved.

We continue to work with the ASTRAEA consortium and the wider Unmanned Air Vehicle community on how best to support the development of this market and will consider requests for funding support that deliver value for money for the UK.

I have asked the MRC to respond to the Hon Member directly.

The BBC’s decision not to shortlist the Met Office for its next contract was a commercial decision by the BBC and was communicated by Met Office to my officials and myself as soon as they became aware that they were not being selected for the next stage of the procurement. The ending of the contract in autumn 2016 is not expected to have significant budgetary implications.

Since the communication of the decision I and my officials have been in dialogue with the Met Office and colleagues elsewhere in government in connection with National Severe Weather Warning service, and in turn with the BBC. The Weather Services Agreement between the Met Office and BBC does not include a research element.

Across the Research Councils, the following changes to deadlines for grant applications have been made since 1 May 2015:

• Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council – two call deadlines have changed since May 2015. One call had its deadline extended by two and a half weeks, and another was extended by almost a month.

• Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council – one call deadline has changed since May 2015. This call had its deadline extended by three weeks.

• Natural Environment Research Council - six call deadlines have changed since May 2015. All calls have just had the deadline extended by one month on average.

The Department will not be publishing the McKinsey work on the grounds that to do so would be likely to reduce the Government’s ability to protect the policy-making process and maintain the delivery of effective Government.

The Department does not hold centrally a record of all external reports, or policy evaluations, that have been carried out by external organisations for the Department and its Agencies. To produce such a list dating back to May 2010/ financial year 2010-11 respectively would incur disproportionate cost.

The Met Office collaborates with a number of universities and research organisations in the UK and overseas to advance the science and skills in meteorology, climate science and related subjects. This involves the placement of scientists between the Met Office and these bodies. Visits can be for short or longer periods of time, but are not generally recorded as formal secondments. During 2014-15, 149 scientists were recorded as visiting the Met Office for collaborative purposes. Extensive collaboration also takes place in the writing of scientific papers.

Met Office records of current and previous formal secondments to universities and research organisations are shown in the table below. It has no record of inward secondments from these organisations in the last 5 years.