Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether the Office for National Statistics includes Higher Education Innovation Funding in its estimate of total UK Research and Development spending.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is an independent producer of official statistics.

Its annual publication “Research and development expenditure by the UK government” has figures for UK Government net expenditure on research and development (R&D) by department and for UK Government net expenditure on knowledge transfer by department, both separately and combined; it has also published experimental statistics on “UK public-funded gross regional capital and non-capital expenditure on research and development”.

I understand that UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) provides ONS with expenditure data on Higher Education Innovation Funding to be included in these statistics.