The Arc Universities Group welcomes the release of UKRI’s first five-year strategy outlines how the organisation will support the UK’s world class research and innovation system, fuel an innovation-led economy and society and drive up prosperity across the UK.
Launched on 17 March 2022, the strategy sets out how UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) will invest in people, places and ideas and break down barriers between disciplines and sectors to tackle current and future challenges.
In doing so, UKRI will support the government’s ambitions for the UK as:
- a global leader in research and innovation
- the best place in the world to innovate and invest in or grow a business.
UKRI Chief Executive Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser said:
Throughout the pandemic, we have seen the transformative power of the UK’s exceptional research and innovation system to navigate an uncertain and fast-changing world.
As we emerge from the pandemic, we have a unique opportunity to empower our economy and our society, putting research and innovation at their heart.
UKRI’s strategy sets out our five-year vision for how we will catalyse this transformation, investing in people, places, and ideas and connecting them up to turn the challenges of the 21st century into opportunities for all.
Technologies and sectors of tomorrow
Science Minister George Freeman said:
The pace of scientific and technological progress is creating huge opportunities for countries that can secure global leadership in the global race for the technologies and sectors of tomorrow: from fusion energy to genomic medicine, agri-tech to artificial intelligence, the UK has huge strengths with the potential to attract billions of investment and drive new opportunities through clusters around the whole of the UK.
That’s why we have committed the biggest increase in public research and development, from £15 billion a year to £22 billion per annum over the next five years.
The key now is to make the UK the most agile, dynamic and interconnected research ecosystem in the world and unlock a new golden age of UK science.
Solutions to national and global challenges
UKRI Chair Sir Andrew Mackenzie said:
From the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of climate change to the technologies and jobs of tomorrow, research and innovation is integral to our present and our future.
Building on the UK’s extraordinary talent and creativity, UKRI’s strategy puts the UK at the forefront of solutions to national and global challenges and the development of an innovation-led country that works for everyone.
Delivery plans for the objectives and the priorities within them will be outlined in strategic delivery plans which will be published later this year.
