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.

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.