Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to support investment in science research at universities in (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England.

The 2021 Spending Review (SR) saw record levels of investment in the UK’s world-leading research base, with public spending on R&D increasing by £5 billion per annum to £20 billion in 2024/25. This settlement will make significant progress to increase R&D sending to £22 billion by 2026-27.

We have committed to a new mission to increase domestic public investment in R&D outside the Greater South East by at least one third over the Spending Review period and at least 40 percent by 2030, with that additional government funding seeking to leverage at least twice as much private sector investment over the long term to stimulate innovation and productivity growth.

Supporting delivery of this mission, BEIS will make levelling up one of the objectives of its R&D investment strategy and will aim for the regions outside the Greater South East to receive at least 55% of its R&D budget by 2024/25.

Alongside increasing investment in innovation across the country, we will invest £100 million to pilot new Innovation Accelerators supporting three UK city regions, including the West Midlands, to become major, globally competitive centres for research and innovation.

The Accelerators will empower local areas by bringing together national and local government, industry and R&D institutions, including universities, in a long-term partnership.

Following the SR, BEIS is working to set detailed R&D budgets through to 2024/25. Further details of how this funding will be allocated will be announced in due course.