Universities UK response to Nurse review of research councils

Dame Julia Goodfellow, President of Universities UK said: “The Nurse review recognises the importance of world-leading research to the UK and the vital role universities play in underpinning this success. The majority of research is carried out at universities.

“We support the review's commitment to maintaining the ‘dual support system’. Any future arrangements must also recognize the importance of maintaining research diversity, and funding research excellence wherever it is found.

“In the government's spending review announcement next week, we would like to see government making a longer term commitment to increasing investment in our world-leading research base. We are now lagging behind the investment being made by our competitors. The UK currently comes bottom of the list of G8 and OECD countries in terms of investment as a proportion of GDP, with the USA investing 3% of GDP and China overtaking us in research and development investment.”