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 increase the level of (a) public and (b) private research and development funding in the North East.

The 2021 Spending Review sees record levels of investment in the UK’s world-leading research base with public spending on Research & Development (R&D) increasing by £5 billion per annum to £20 billion in 2024-25. The substantial uplift to research and science funding will not only allow the UK to build on our core strengths but will also provide opportunities to grow research and innovation investment across the entire country.

UKRI currently funds over 570 active science and research projects in the North East of England with a value of over £660 million. More specifically, the Government has already committed over £93.6 million Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund funding to organisations registered in the North East, which has leveraged an additional £41.8 million co-investment from non-public sources.

The Innovation Strategy, published in July, signalled how we would embed innovation across the country to level up the UK. We will create the right policy environment and send clear signals to unlock business investment in innovation and boost the private sector investment we need to achieve the 2.4% target by 2027 including in the North East. Making the most of R&D in places around the UK remains a key government priority and the forthcoming Levelling Up White Paper will set out the plan for doing this.

UKRI are also publishing detailed breakdowns of their funding data at a regional level annually to increase transparency of how places benefit from R&D funding. Latest available data is at: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/what-we-have-funded/regional-distribution-of-funding/2018-to-2019-regional-distribution-of-funding/#contents-list.