Asked by: Jo Churchill (Conservative - Bury St Edmunds)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate his Department has made of the total revenue generated from the investment by small businesses in the life sciences sector in research and development for 2016-17.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
The Department does not hold information on of the total revenue generated from the investment by small businesses in the life sciences sector in research and development for 2016-17.
At over 5,000 companies, small businesses comprise 93% of the life sciences sector. The Government recognises the importance of small businesses operating in the sector and the valuable contribution that they make.
To avoid overburdening businesses there is no mandate for companies to submit information about investments they make in R&D. In many instances it would be difficult to quantify the revenue directly attributable to R&D undertaken rather than by other business activities. Also due to the long timescales involved in R&D any revenue generated by R&D would be generated in a different year from when the R&D was performed.
Asked by: Jo Churchill (Conservative - Bury St Edmunds)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what plans his Department has to ensure that the Government's investment in science supports research in universities by means of an increase in the Charity Research Support Fund in England.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
The Government recognises the significant contribution made by charitable funders of research. The charity support element of Quality Related research funding, provided by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), recognises the public benefit arising from research funded by charities. Over the period 2011-17, HEFCE has protected support for institutions leveraging funding from the charitable sector and has provided £198m per annum for this through to 2016-17.
The “Allocation of Science and Research funding 2016 – 2020” confirmed the Government’s expectation that throughout this period HEFCE should continue to incentivise Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) to work with businesses and charities, leveraging additional investment. It will be for the HEFCE Board to determine how much to provide for charity research support from within their overall research allocation for 2017-18, once they have received their annual Grant Letter from Ministers.