UK government details regional R&D spending for the first time
The UK government has collected data on research and development spending across the country for the first time, highlighting that half of public funding is spent in London and the South East. In-house research takes an even greater share.
“Up until now we have based our figures for government R&D on a survey, which is sent to each government department, asking them what R&D is conducted and where in government it is performed. However, the survey does not collect data on where in the country R&D contracted outside of government takes place,” said Heather Bovill, Deputy Director for Surveys and Economic Indicators at the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS).
This comes as the newly created Department of Science, Innovation and Technology is struggling to publish a strategy for semiconductors. It published the wireless infrastructure strategy last week: UK launches wireless infrastructure strategy.
“To measure the Government’s targets on Levelling Up and reducing UK regional disparities we acquired detailed expenditure data from the three departments with the largest expenditure on R&D; the Department for Health and Social Care (which includes the NHS), the Business department, (which includes UK Research and Innovation) and the Ministry of Defence, which together constitute 88% of UK government gross capital and non-capital expenditure on R&D,” she said.
The data is here https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/dvc2446b/fig2/datadownload.xlsx
Combining this data with the existing survey information has provided improved regional estimates of government’s in-house expenditure on R&D and, for the first time, of its expenditure on externally contracted R&D.
The Greater South East – which consists of the International Territorial Level 1 (ITL1) regions of London, the South East and the East of England – accounted for 49.9% of total UK public-funded expenditure on research and development (R&D) performed in the UK in the financial year ending 2021.
London and the South East had the two highest values of UK public-funded gross R&D expenditure of all UK countries and regions, whereas Northern Ireland had the lowest R&D expenditure value.
Just over half (53.9%) of total UK public-funded purchased or funded R&D was performed outside the Greater South East in 2021.
Of total in-house performed UK public-funded R&D, 62.5% was conducted in the Greater South East, with just over one-quarter (28.0%) of total in-house R&D taking place in the South East.
The estimates show a different regional pattern of the Government’s spending on R&D, with the new estimates showing half of all government R&D taking place in the greater South East of England. This is explained by differences in collection methods between the survey and the direct return as well as the data being presented in gross, not net, terms.
“The project provides never seen before detailed insight into the government’s regional expenditure on R&D. It has also given us valuable information that we can use to improve the design of our government R&D Survey to ensure that in upcoming years we can produce even better estimates of exactly where R&D is taking place,” said Bovill.
“Taken with our work on private sector R&D, the transformation programme we are undertaking will ensure that the UK can produce world-leading R&D figures showing more accurately who is undertaking R&D and where it is taking place.”
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