By Boudewijn Devanicus, Research Development Manager (Health and Science) at UWE Bristol.
Earlier this year we looked at how UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) Spending Review settlement reorganised research funding into four strategic investment areas across 2026–30:
- £14.5bn for curiosity-driven foundational research
- £8.3bn for targeted R&D addressing government and societal priorities
- £7.4bn to support innovative companies to start, scale and stay in the UK
- £8.4bn for skills, talent, infrastructure and national facilities underpinning all three areas
That blog focused on the broad “buckets” of UKRI funding. UKRI has now published its new five-year strategy (2026–2031) alongside its Delivery Plan for 2026–27. Since the budget itself was already known, there are few new spending commitments, but there’s now much more clarity on what UKRI’s priorities are, how it intends to invest, and who it expects to work with.
To summarise the changes in a sentence: UKRI intends to be more selective, less duplicative, and more challenge-led in what it prioritises, and be faster, more flexible, and more responsive in how it funds.
What funding areas does the strategy prioritise?
Curiosity-driven research
UKRI has explicitly protected a large “investigator-led” budget (£3.3bn) to support discovery research, underpinned by dual support and quality-related (QR) funding. UKRI says it is “committed to supporting and sustaining [this] investment, growing as the economy allows”. In practice this means open responsive calls will continue, though their format may evolve; the Delivery Plan mentions new open applicant-led schemes for BBSRC, and five new ESRC schemes (React, Connect, Grow, Explore, Challenge).
QR funding is still championed, but its allocation method is under review. Research England’s Strategic Institutional Research Funding (SIRF) review, running to 2030, is examining whether the formula-based funding given to English universities should better reward specialisation and collaboration. This echoes last autumn’s Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper, which wants to see “fewer broad generalist providers and more specialists” over time, with institutions collaborating rather than duplicating effort.
Strategic government and societal priorities
A revised emphasis is on targeted R&D to address government-defined challenges. This will mainly be delivered through integrated “Priority Programmes” which broadly align to the eight Industrial Strategy-identified sectors (IS-8), as well as leaving some space “wider priorities” categories that do not fit neatly within the IS8. The overarching message is that “UKRI will be selective about interventions to maximise the return for the UK”, emphasising the general approach of doing fewer things, better. These programmes don’t replace the old Research Councils, but are intended to break down the siloing that occurs across them, with Priority Programmes overseen by UKRI’s own programme board(s). Other UKRI organisational reforms also support this: rather than each Council guarding its own budget, resources will be dynamically managed across UKRI as a single portfolio, allowing funding to be reprofiled mid-year to capture emerging opportunities.
Industry and commercialisation
UKRI has substantially boosted support for business-led innovation (£7.4bn). Innovate UK is being refocused, via new service offers and IP support, to help spin-outs, scale-ups and R&D-intensive companies grow, including through its account-managed Velocity service for fast-tracking commercialisation. Mechanisms for research translation are also being simplified (see below).
How will funding change?
Faster and more responsive funding
UKRI wants faster, more agile decision-making: grant processing times will be cut through new assessment mechanisms and simplified applications. The target is to bring application-to-decision times down to 90 days for applicant-led calls and 60 days for targeted calls by 2031.
Some of this ‘speeding-up’ is expected to come from more experimental review methods which have been piloted with by the Metascience Unit (established under the former DSIT in 2024, now sitting within the merged business department). Distributed Peer Review, already trialled in 2025, asks applicants to assess each other’s proposals rather than relying solely on external reviewers. UKRI is now building this into a wider AI-assisted evidence platform intended to speed decisions further, alongside faster desk rejection of applications that clearly don’t meet the criteria.
As well as changes on the UKRI-side, there continues to be a trend towards more University-side ‘demand management’ (limiting how many applications an institution can submit to a given call). REE will continue to work on facilitating this demand management as quickly, efficiently, and fairly as possible.
Simplification and deduplication
Where possible, UKRI are trying to reduce duplication of schemes and harmonise them to use the same terminology. For example, in relation to innovation funding schemes there now will be a “new framework [which] reduces the number of schemes [they] run, helping simplify our offer and making sure [they] use consistent terminology across UKRI” (Prosperity Partnerships to enable collaborative R&I; Impact Acceleration to test applicability of new ideas to commercial application; Proof of Concept funding to test these ideas at scale, and Entrepreneurship training support).
Who will UKRI work with and expect universities to partner with?
UKRI is growing increasingly ambitious in encouraging private co-investment: UKRI is targeting 3:1 leverage on its Priority Programmes (compared to historic levels of 2:1 in wider R&I investment), so bids developed alongside industry, charity or other private funding may be viewed more favourably. Innovate UK, the Catapult network and new sector-specific Tech Boards are the main named delivery partners on this side of the strategy.
Collaboration with local government (be that city regions/councils, combined authorities, or NHS bodies) is another expectation. Through the £500m Local Innovation Partnerships Fund (which funded its first tranche of programmes in April 2026), UKRI wants city regions, combined authorities and universities to co-design programmes around genuine local strengths. In parallel with this and other investments (e.g. OxCam Arc), UKRI will also publish a refreshed “place funding policy” this year. This regional approach was further cemented in the devolution of “later-stage innovation funding” in the recent Rewiring the State – Cabinet Statement.
Internationally, UKRI is prioritising partnerships with the greatest mutual scientific and strategic benefit, particularly multilateral programmes like Horizon Europe and organisations such as CERN. Of note, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT)’s annual report and accounts for 2025-26 were published recently, showing that 2025-26 Horizon Europe associated cost was £2.043bn against an allocated figure of £2.736bn.
Broader context
UKRI’s reforms sit inside a wider policy landscape rather than standing alone. The Industrial Strategy’s eight priority sectors (IS-8) provide the framework most Priority Programmes will map onto; the Defence Industrial Strategy (Sept 2025) commits to significant defence spending growth with an emphasis on dual-use technology (aligning with UKRI’s push on AI, quantum and engineering biology); and the AI for Science Strategy (Oct 2025) earmarks around £137m for AI-driven science, likely feeding into UKRI’s own AI-focused calls. The Post-16 White Paper, discussed above, shapes how QR funding and specialisation evolve alongside the SIRF review.
This backdrop now sits under a new government. Andy Burnham became Prime Minister in July 2026, and one of his first acts was to abolish DSIT, folding its science and innovation responsibilities into a new Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (DBIST) under Jonathan Reynolds, with some digital and creative-industries functions moving to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport under Lisa Nandy, and universities policy moving to Lucy Powell at Education.
Early signals suggest Burnham intends to preserve the existing R&D settlement and Industrial Strategy rather than reopen them, but his “Manchesterism” emphasis on devolved, bottom-up growth, echoed already in UKRI’s own Local Innovation Partnerships Fund, makes it likely that regional research funding and devolution deals gain even more prominence over this parliament.
What this means for you and for UWE
Think about sector and regional strengths
- Show how your work contributes to Industrial Strategy sectors (e.g. IS-8 sectors such as AI, health, clean energy), major agendas (NHS Long Term Plan, AI for Science) or regional strengths (West of England creative tech, green clusters etc.).
Embrace interdisciplinary calls and programmes.
- Collaborate across UWE, external academics partners, or with industry partners to fit with the new Priority Programmes, supported by UWE’s new internal funding routes if pump-priming is needed.
- Contact REE’s BID team to get help with positioning bids for outcome-driven calls, as well as keeping on top of new funding opportunities through the Research Funding Bulletin.
Consider commercialisation and partnerships early.
- Engage REE’s Innovation and Impact team as soon as you realise your research could spin out technology or inform policy.
- Develop and nurture industry, third-sector and local government contacts to bolster bids, with help from REE’s Business and Alumni Partnerships team.
Monitor and learn new processes
- Get ahead by reading UKRI’s guidance from their pilot on Distributed Peer Review and other new schemes so that timely submissions and quick revisions (if invited) don’t catch your team out.
