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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what support his Department is providing to universities to increase collaboration with research institutions in developing economies.

The Government is supporting collaboration with research institutions in developing countries through a number of programmes, including the Newton fund, which now operates in 15 countries. We recently announced the extension of the Newton fund to 2021, with total investment rising to three quarters of a billion pounds between 2014/15 – 2020/21. In addition, at the Spending Review, the Chancellor announced a new Global Challenges Research fund worth £1.5 billion over the next five years (2016/17 - 2020/21).