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UK Research and Innovation

Established	1 April 2018
Type	Non-departmental public body
Headquarters	Swindon, Wiltshire, England
Chair	Andrew Mackenzie
CEO	Ottoline Leyser
Parent organisation	Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
Staff	7,463 (2019/20)
Website	www.ukri.org

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is a non-departmental public body of the Government of the United Kingdom that directs research and innovation funding, funded through the science budget of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

History and role

Established on 1 April 2018 by the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, UKRI brought nine organisations into one unified body. UKRI was created following a report by Sir Paul Nurse, the President of the Royal Society, who recommended the merger in order to increase integrative cross-disciplinary research.

Working in partnership with universities, research organisations, businesses, charities, and government, its mission is to foster research and development within the United Kingdom and create a positive "impact"—"push the frontiers of human knowledge and understanding", "deliver economic impact", and "create social and cultural impact". The first Chief Executive Officer of UKRI was the immunologist Professor Sir Mark Walport. He was succeeded in June 2020 by plant biologist Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser.

Research councils

There are nine bodies in UKRI, comprising the seven research councils formerly organised under Research Councils UK and two additional bodies, Innovate UK and Research England. Innovate UK (formerly the Technology Strategy Board) was an Arms Length Body of the Department of Trade and Industry, while Research England succeeded the former Higher Education Funding Council for England. Research England is responsible for the Research Excellence Framework, or REF, and is developing a new knowledge exchange framework, KEF.

See also

• Advanced Research and Invention Agency

References

1. "UKRI Board". UKRI. Retrieved 26 October 2024.
2. "John Kingman to Lead Creation of New £6 Billion Research and Innovation Body – GOV.UK". gov.uk. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
3. ^ "About us – UK Research and Innovation". www.ukri.org. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
4. "Nurse review of research councils". GOV.UK. 19 November 2015. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
5. Ghosh, Pallab (4 July 2017). "UK Research Chief "Will Not Direct Science"". BBC News. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
6. "Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser to join UK Research and Innovation as new Chief Executive". ukri.org. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
7. "Our Councils – UK Research and Innovation". ukri.org. Retrieved 29 August 2020.
8. Pells, Rachael (14 October 2017). "England's KEF: will it be a 'patent-counting' extra reporting burden?". Times Higher Education. Retrieved 10 April 2018.
9. Figures from summing breakdown in budget outturn excluding administrative spend from the "Annual Report and Accounts 2019–2020". UK Research and Innovation. 16 July 2020. Retrieved 29 August 2020.

Sources

• "UKRI's rebrand promotes "knowledge with impact"". 22 October 2019.

External links

• Official website

• Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
• Funding bodies in the United Kingdom
• Innovation in the United Kingdom
• Non-departmental public bodies of the United Kingdom government
• Research and development in the United Kingdom
• Research funding agencies
• Science policy in the United Kingdom
• UK Research and Innovation