Chris McDonald sets out the government’s innovation priorities

In his speech to the Universities UK conference, science minister Chris McDonald promised to build directly on the work of his predecessor in the role, Patrick Vallance, and lent his support to the push for more specialised and collaborative research found in the Starmer-era post-16 education and skills white paper. But he demonstrably has his own agenda too.

Several themes came across that showed which areas the newly formed Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST) will prioritise in research and innovation – and why the department has been set up in the way it has.

The minister was clear throughout that retaining the benefits of research within the UK, and securing the country’s international competitiveness in science and innovation, will be a recurring refrain in BIST’s work. He was also unexpectedly candid about bureaucracy and administrative burden while outlining UKRI’s ongoing reforms to grant processes. And he suggested that government direction over research priorities will be ever more prominent.

McDonald also sought to emphasise throughout how this agenda was supported from the prime ministerial level, saying that his quest to “better to win the benefits of our curiosity-based research here in this country” was exactly in keeping with what he had been told by Andy Burnham on his appointment:

“The Prime Minister has asked me to ensure that more of our world-class research translates into growth and jobs. And to quote him directly, he said he wants to put science in the service of industry.”

International competition

One of Chris McDonald’s first interventions as science minister was to express his concerns about the UK losing innovative companies overseas. This followed speculation about a possible “exit tax” to dissuade spin-outs from leaving the UK, a rumour which BIST has since attempted to shoot down.

But his conference speech positioned the UK’s international competitiveness, and retention of both companies and researchers, as a major focus. We need to move quickly, he told vice chancellors, to “ensure that we both exploit our latest research at home and that our science research base remains a global leader.”

He reeled off a list of examples where UK discovery research had laid the groundwork for inventions which were later commercialised elsewhere in the world, from antibody therapies to semiconductors. As he put it:

“We must clear the path from breakthrough research to application in British companies, companies that would scale and stay here, creating jobs and economic growth at home whilst exporting to the world.”

Every instance of a breakthrough being commercialised abroad “is a lost opportunity for us,” he concluded. He was also clear in the subsequent Q&A that the government’s thinking is not only on spin-outs and small start-ups, but also the ability of larger public companies to make use of research.

The solution, as he painted it, was partly about the industrial strategy, and more concretely about maximising the impact of the Catapult network, which is currently being reviewed, and incentivising university-business partnerships such as those found in investment zones.

The question of talent retention was also brought into the discussion, though this didn’t extend to concrete policy solutions. Our highly skilled graduates “should be making use of their talents in Sheffield, in Warwick, and in Nottingham, and not leaving for Boston, for Munich, or Shenzhen,” he argued.

A “value-destroying activity”

McDonald was at his frankest when unveiling reforms to grant application processes for some of UKRI’s portfolio. The reforms themselves – summarised in today’s UKRI news item – have been well signposted in UKRI’s strategy, and in some cases (such as greater use of in-person interviews) have already been partially rolled out.

But the minister was notably candid about his own views on the matter:

“This is very much a personal view, but I’ve long seen grant funding competitions as essentially a value-destroying activity.”

He said that he wanted to see a system that “prioritises faster research outcomes,” adding that this should also be seen as an opportunity to “make life a little easier and a bit more enjoyable from many researchers.”

UKRI is going to look at larger and longer-term investments for its soon-to-be-unveiled priority programmes within “bucket two”. It will increase the use of distributed peer review, use demand management more actively (despite concerns that this displaces, rather than reduces, burden), and give programme teams “more discretion about what goes forward and how it’s commissioned.”

Though it didn’t get a mention in the minister’s speech, UKRI’s press release also highlights the “safe use of AI-assisted assessment” and the further testing of initial triage of applications by UKRI staff.

Government priorities

McDonald argued that the move away from grant competitions in this part of UKRI’s portfolio would inherently require government to set a “clearer direction around research priorities.”

To a great extent, he suggested, this could already be seen in the industrial strategy, specific sector plans, and – as we have suggested on the site – the recently published space strategy. To this, he added the Prime Minister’s personal priorities of “reindustrialisation and regionalisation.”

But he hinted that there is more to come, picking out public sector reform and defence as other key areas:

“I do recognise that we may need collectively to go further, identifying those areas where greater research focus is required. It’s most certainly the case that defence, growth through reindustrialisation, and public service delivery are all areas where there is great scope for research and research applications.”

Collaboration endorsed, and new funding announced

McDonald strove to leave his audience in no doubt that the “consolidation” agenda, a major theme of last year’s Universities UK conference and the subsequent skills white paper, remained part of the department’s thinking despite changes in the machinery of government:

“The white paper proposes a more specialised, collaborative, and sustainable sector that makes use of institutional diversity. I do think this is the right strategy.”

He backed this up with a pre-announcement of a Research England-led funding opportunity – opening on 1 October – to incentivise research collaborations and innovation partnerships. The minister spoke approvingly of the potential for shared research facilities, joint doctoral training centres, and longer-term partnerships.

Just shy of £20m will be on offer in total – around £4m for eligible English universities to test new collaborations and models which drive efficiency and cost effectiveness of the research and innovation system, and a further £15m of seed funding for UK-wide partnerships, which we’re told will seek to link up geographical areas in the model of the Cambridge-Manchester partnership.

The frontline of politics

It’s clear that the UK research sector, in particular the university end of it, will continue to be asked to collaborate and to do more within its regions. Part of what McDonald was doing today was trying to square the circle between regional emphasis and international excellence, in a way that at times felt like an awkward fit. Certainly some in the audience were sceptical that offering “fewer, larger grants” would benefit all institutions and all regions.

But what did come across was a clear programme of work for BIST: more focus on “scale and stay” – and hopefully on talent attraction and retention too – as well as greater industry connectivity, and larger and more free-standing research programmes in national priority areas.

The new science minister at one point said that in bringing science into the business department, Prime Minister Andy Burnham has “moved science onto the frontline of politics.” This was indeed what came across.