An overview of how UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) brings global knowledge to the UK and UK expertise to the world.
Why international collaboration is important
No one country can solve the complex, global challenges of our time. The UK is playing a leading role by ensuring its expertise and infrastructures can collaborate with the best researchers, innovators, and institutions around the world.
Research and innovation is inherently a global endeavour, and becoming more so: around 60% of UK publications now include an international co-author (see International comparison of the UK research base, 2022 from GOV.uk).
Collaborating globally gives researchers and innovators access to infrastructure, data and expertise that is not available within any single country. It has been shown to increase the citation impact of UK publications, the quality of the research we produce and the societal impacts we are able to achieve, by supporting local solutions for local problems.
International research and innovation collaboration has also been shown to enhance the economic impact of the UK’s research and innovation (see Economic Benefits of International Collaboration in Research, Development and Innovation from the Innovation and Research Caucus).
Innovative small businesses benefit from working internationally in terms of productivity, growth and innovation by gaining understanding of, and access to, new markets (see Internationalisation of European SMEs: taking stock and moving ahead (PDF, 1.68MB) from KfW).
Case study: developing a local circular plastic economy in Africa
UK researchers worked with collaborators in Kenya, Rwanda and Nigeria to demonstrate the potential for plastic waste to be converted into filament for 3D printing, and then into valuable products for the local community. Six case study products were developed, including a custom fruit picker, a non-electric milk cooler and a modular fish farming system. This has demonstrated the potential for this technology to be used to support a local circular plastic economy in Kenya, Rwanda and Nigeria.
The design team received a silver in the Social Impact category of the 2021 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) of the Industrial Designers Society of America.
UKRI's international priorities
UKRI has a vital role to play in shaping and enabling diverse, secure, equitable and creative global collaborations in research and innovation. Through these collaborations, we learn from each other and are empowered to devise solutions that will create a fairer society and safer, resilient and prosperous global communities.
UKRI’s approach to international collaboration is aligned with, and supports, UK government ambitions. The UK Science and Technology Framework and the International Technology Strategy highlight the role of international opportunities in delivering on the UK’s science and technology ambitions.
Likewise, UK foreign policy recognises the importance of research and innovation collaboration in advancing the UK’s interests and tackling global challenges. This is outlined in:
- the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy
- the Integrated Review Refresh 2023
- the International Development white paper
UKRI’s international priorities are guided by the six objectives of our International Strategic Framework, reflecting the objectives of the overall UKRI Strategy: Transforming tomorrow together. These highlight our long-term commitment to supporting international collaboration through:
- people and careers: enabling people and teams to collaborate, exchange and thrive through international collaboration
- places: strengthening our global relationships and working together on the infrastructures that often underpin collaboration
- ideas: advancing the frontiers of human knowledge and innovation by supporting the best ideas wherever they are found
- innovation: enabling innovation by connecting UK and international businesses, researchers, institutions and investors, in the UK and globally
- impacts: embedding international considerations in our work on strategic themes and transformative technologies
- world-class organisation: catalysing change through partnerships, championing diversity and increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of our activities
View an infographic of our key international budget allocations for 2022 to 2025
People and careers: how we enable people to thrive through collaboration
The UK’s ongoing ability to attract and retain global research and innovation talent is key for the UK’s research and development ambitions (see the Global Mobility of Research Personnel report).
Our role in world-leading global infrastructure and the strong voice we have on a global stage are important factors in maintaining the UK’s reputation and ability to attract talented people and teams.
We work closely with the UK government to support global mobility, including through:
- the development and delivery of visas that enable talented innovators, researchers and their teams to come to the UK
- partnering on talent campaigns
- updating our grant terms and conditions to enable more individuals to claim visa costs for working in the UK
- doctoral funding for eligible international students
UKRI also supports UK research and innovation talent to be globally mobile. Through a range of travel, networking and partnership grants, we support our community to build connections and enhance capacity through exposure to new expertise, cultures and perspectives.
Read more about our support for talent and global mobility.
Case study: building international networks for early career researchers
The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) International Fellowships offer an opportunity for early career researchers to spend time at prestigious cultural institutions overseas.
Past fellows have:
- studied the material culture of Soviet and Russian space programmes at the Smithsonian Institutes in the US
- investigated Yōkai paintings at the National Institutes for the Humanities in Japan
- researched historically responsive theatre practice at the Shanghai Theatre Academy
Through their placements, the researchers access unique cultural resources and expertise to enhance their own research, but also establish networks that will continue to grow throughout their careers.
Places: how we strengthen our global relationships
UKRI’s global reach
Figure 1: since UKRI was formed in 2018, and up until the end of 2024, we have supported collaboration with over 8,000 organisations across 188 countries. Our top collaborators are the US, Germany, France and Canada.
Our overseas offices
The UKRI offices in China, in India and in North America deepen partnerships with leading and emerging research and innovation nations. They provide insights into their respective research and innovation landscapes and build close connections with local funders.
This opens opportunities for joint working, with UKRI funding UK researchers and innovators while their overseas collaborators receive support in parallel from their own domestic funders.
Since the overseas offices were opened 15 years ago:
- UKRI has supported over 800 collaborative projects with China, with the majority (71%) of resulting academic publications being made available open access
- close to £400 million of joint funding has been committed with India, through partnerships with 16 funding agencies and government departments
- the volume of UKRI awards involving collaboration with the US and Canada has increased by 30% between 2015 and 2022, with the total value of awards increasing by 66%
International infrastructure and facilities
UKRI supports collaboration through our infrastructure investments. The world-leading research infrastructure we host in the UK attracts users from around the world. For example:
- over 30,000 researchers from more than 90 countries have registered to use UK Biobank
- in 2022 to 2023, 140 users from 30 countries accessed the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source
UKRI also invests in infrastructure hosted overseas to enable UK researchers and innovators to access the tools, resources and data they need for their work.
Between 2022 and 2025, the Science and Technology Facilities Council will invest £934 million in international infrastructure subscriptions across 10 countries. Due to the scale and costs of such facilities, many infrastructures can only be realised through international collaborations and long-term strategic planning.
This ensures that UK researchers and innovators have access to world-leading international facilities, such as the Square Kilometre Array Observatory. The observatory will have the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope on Earth, enabling exploration into the evolution of the Universe.
UKRI also hosts facilities overseas, in the Arctic, Antarctic, the Gambia and Uganda, which ensure that UK researchers can undertake research close to the source of the data.
UKRI’s overseas locations, facilities and infrastructure
Figure 2: a map pinpointing the location of the UKRI overseas offices in North America, India and China. It also includes UKRI’s research facilities in Antarctica, Svalbard in the Arctic Circle, the Gambia and Uganda, our major international infrastructure investments around the world, our research ships and research plane.
Case study: from studying the Big Bang at CERN to treating cancer in the UK
With support from the Wellcome Trust, STFC and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), a team of engineers and scientists from the UK and South Africa took technology originally developed for the upgrade to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and turned this into one of the most complex medical imaging devices ever conceived.
The scanner allows for real-time monitoring of the radiation dose being given to cancer patients undergoing proton therapy, improving treatment efficiency and reducing the risk of secondary cancer. It is now being installed in a hospital in Manchester, the first time that a proton imaging system is used in an operational proton therapy centre.
Ideas: how we support the best ideas wherever they are found
Through UKRI funding opportunities we offer support for UK researchers and innovative businesses to establish, build and maintain collaborative relationships with their peers globally. These include a range of open routes to allow researchers and innovators to choose the location, type and subject of their partnership.
As a result, around a third of research council grants include an overseas collaborator as a co-lead, project partner, visiting researcher, consultant or subcontractor.
We set up more directed routes where we have identified opportunities or gaps to establish or enhance partnerships in strategic areas. For example, through the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s International Science Partnerships Fund we will be investing £190 million between 2022 and 2025 to support close working with international partners to address global challenges, build knowledge and develop the technologies of tomorrow.
In addition, UKRI’s research councils run a number of funding opportunities designed to strengthen international partnerships in particular areas of mutual interest.
Flexible funding provided to higher education institutes (HEIs) from Research England, including through quality-related research funding, allows HEIs to establish and strengthen the many roles they play at local, national and international levels.
Find out more about getting funding for international research.
How UKRI funds international collaboration
Figure 3: an outline of the routes through which UKRI funds international collaboration, including ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ opportunities. These include directed funds such as the International Science Partnerships Fund, council and cross-UKRI opportunities for bi- and multi-lateral collaboration, Lead Agency opportunities, International co-lead policy, and adding collaborators as a project partner, visiting researcher, consultant or subcontractor. UKRI also provides support for networking and partnership building through Global Missions, Institutional linkages, travel funding, partnering awards and workshops.
Case study: a 30-year UK-Japan collaboration bringing investment into UK research facilities
Since 1990, the UK’s ISIS Neutron and Muon Source has partnered with the Japanese RIKEN institute to fund the construction and operation of the RIKEN-RAL Muon Facility in the UK. Over 30 years, the partnership has supported 2,500 days of experiments, more than 500 publications and collaborations with more than 90 institutes across Japan. It has also led to further agreements with Malaysian, Indonesian and Korean institutes.
Topics investigated range widely. One project is using the muon particles to simulate the effect of cosmic rays on semiconductors. Improving our understanding of these effects will help to better protect computing and memory devices from critical errors in future.
Another project is using muon beams for non-destructive materials research to shed light on the manufacture of the gold-plated Baptistery Gates of Florence.
Read more about the RIKEN-RAL Muon Facility
Bilateral and multilateral funding partnerships
UKRI’s international funding opportunities are often delivered in collaboration with like-minded funding partners around the world. We work bilaterally with individual countries on joint areas of interest. Through joint funding opportunities, we reduce bureaucracy for researchers, enable equitable partnerships and secure additional resources.
For example, we have established a Money follows cooperation agreement with Research Council Norway (RCN). Under the agreement, both RCN and participating UKRI councils will reciprocally open their agreed national research funding opportunities to collaborative applications involving researchers from the other country as co-investigators. This provides a streamlined route for funding UK-Norway research collaborations, with researchers having the freedom to determine the topic of collaboration.
We also work multilaterally. Through our membership of global multilateral research we address global challenges with partners from around the world, increase access and opportunities for UK researchers and leverage funding.
Case study: working across borders and disciplines on climate, environment and health
The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) was one of the founding members of the Belmont Forum, a collaboration with members across 27 countries to facilitate international collaboration on climate change.
In 2019, NERC, the Medical Research Council (MRC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) joined forces to support UK participation in a Belmont Forum funding opportunity on Climate, environment and health.
By supporting multilateral, research projects working across disciplines, this initiative aimed to understand the pathways between climate, environment and health to protect and promote human health and wellbeing in the face of climate challenges. The UK’s investment of £2.8 million was match funded by £6.7 million from other Belmont Forum members.
For example, researchers from the UK, Burkina Faso, Kenya, South Africa, Sweden, Norway and the US have studied the risks from extreme heat on maternal and neonatal health, to inform strategies for the management of heatwaves and for adaptation in health systems in sub-Saharan Africa.
Find out more about the projects funded by the Belmont Forum.
Enabling UK engagement in Horizon Europe
The UK Research Office (UKRO) plays a key role in maximising the UK’s engagement in EU research and innovation programmes, notably Horizon Europe. It does this through acting as a trusted source of advice, promoting the UK’s research and innovation strengths and liaising with EU institutions.
The UK signed an agreement to finalise the UK’s association to Horizon Europe on 4 September 2023, ensuring UK access to the €95.5 billion research and innovation programme running until 2027. UKRO and the National Contact Point network will continue to support UK applicants to Horizon Europe by providing impartial advice on applying for, and managing, EU funding.
UKRI is also managing the Horizon Europe guarantee scheme. This provides funding for UK researchers and innovators who are part of successful Horizon Europe bids up to the end of work programme 2023.
As of 31 January 2025, UKRI had offered over 4,200 grant letters worth more than £2.1 billion under the Horizon Europe guarantee. This has been an important interim measure, ensuring that the strong ties between UK and European research and investment communities have been maintained while the association deal was finalised.
Case study: improving the safety of self-driving cars through European collaboration
Horizon Europe guarantee funding supported UK researchers to collaborate with research organisations and companies from Italy, Spain and Austria to develop a computer chip that works like an organic brain to see its physical surroundings.
By learning from animal and human vision, the Nimble AI project aims to reduce the energy demand and improve the performance of smart monitors in self-driving cars. This not only has implications for improving the safety of autonomous vehicles, but also has potential applications in medical imaging and wearable eye-tracking glasses.
Read more about the case study: Nimble AI: developing a chip that works like a brain.
Innovation: how we enable innovation through international connections
Innovate UK will invest £100 million between 2022 and 2025 to help innovative UK businesses grow and scale globally by unlocking market opportunities and reducing engagement barriers in partner countries and geographies.
We build international partnerships that create new opportunities for businesses in key territories, cutting-edge technologies and themes, and deliver a series of programmes that help businesses to access those opportunities. In this way, we help drive the growth of the UK economy and increase our global leadership in innovation and technology.
Find out more about the support available to grow and scale UK businesses globally.
Case study: building self-driving baggage handling vehicles for global airports
Aurrigo, a Coventry-based company, received support from Innovate UK to develop and test self-driving baggage handling vehicles at Singapore’s Changi airport. The project resulted in Auto-Dolly, a unique and disruptive baggage transportation solution for airports that can reduce baggage and cargo loading and unloading times, improve movement efficiencies, and drastically reduce operational costs.
While manufacturing continues to take place in Coventry, Aurrigo has opened offices in Singapore, Canada, Australia and the US to take the product global.
Read more about the success of Auto Dolly in the Fund for International Collaboration evaluation.
Impacts: how we embed international collaboration to enable transformative impacts
Through international collaboration, UK researchers and innovators are addressing global challenges.
Research and innovation for development
UKRI is a long-standing funder of research and innovation for development, and a trusted delivery partner for the UK’s official development assistance (ODA) funding. Through ODA initiatives, we work in collaboration with developing countries to leverage UK research and innovation expertise to address the challenges these countries face.
Between 2022 and 2025, we will be investing over £566 million in ODA research, including to support ongoing research through the legacy Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and Newton Fund, as well as through launching new opportunities through the International Science Partnerships Fund (ISPF).
This includes ISPF Institutional Support Grant (ODA) funding of £47 million which provides institutional grant funding that can be used strategically to support ODA-eligible activity.
Case study: engaging former guerillas in preserving Colombia’s biodiversity
Funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council (BBSRC), an alliance of UK and Colombian research, government, business and third sector organisations aimed to preserve Colombian biodiversity while also finding ways to support post-conflict rehabilitation.
Working in Colombia in the immediate aftermath of the peace accords, the project engaged former guerillas as citizen scientists to carry out species surveys and explore opportunities for conservation and ecotourism in conflict zones that had not previously been accessible.
Read more about the project: Preserving, restoring and managing Colombian biodiversity through responsible innovation (Gateway to Research)
Case study: UK-Ukraine University Twinning Initiative
Research England has provided support for Universities UK International to deliver the UK-Ukraine University Twinning Initiative, through a £5 million investment. The project is intended to help UK and Ukrainian universities share resources and assistance in a collective gesture of solidarity and reciprocity to benefit Ukrainian institutions, staff and students.
Read more about how the UK higher education sector responded to the invasion of Ukraine (Universities UK)
Embedding international collaboration into UKRI’s strategic themes
UKRI’s strategy has identified five strategic themes to encourage cross-disciplinary working to tackle large-scale, complex challenges. Given the global scope of these challenges, we need to build strategic international partnerships to address these issues, such as the examples below.
Building a green future
UKRI, with partners in the US, Canada and Australia, has invested £61 million in Global Centers on clean energy and climate change. The Global Centers will conduct innovative research to tackle hard-to-decarbonise sectors across the economy, accelerating transformative socioeconomic and technological innovation and driving the global energy transition.
Tackling infections
UKRI is supporting the participation of UK researchers in transnational consortia as part of the Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR) interventions.
These aim to tackle the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance by designing new interventions against fungal infections, and improving and comparing the effectiveness and uptake of existing interventions against bacterial or fungal infections.
World-class organisation: how we catalyse change through partnerships
UKRI is committed to safe and equitable research collaboration. In setting our policy, we seek advice, guidance and critical challenge from stakeholders, especially through the diverse membership of our International Strategic Advisory Group.
Equitable partnerships
Contextual, social and cultural differences need to be taken into account when collaborating with international partners. This is especially important in resource-poor settings, where inherent power imbalances might impact the conduct of research.
UKRI believes that it is essential that our partnerships are equitable and conducted in a responsible manner, and we have set out the key principles to which we expect our researchers and innovators to adhere, alongside guidance and good practice.
Case study: fostering equitable partnerships with the Inuit community
The Canadian Inuit Nunangat UK (CINUK) funding programme has supported a diverse portfolio of projects to understand the environmental, social and economic impacts of the rapid changes to the Arctic climate.
Importantly, the Canadian Inuit community were involved in shaping the funding programme, and are working closely with the projects to provide meaningful insights on shipping, community, wildlife and ecosystem health, travel, search and rescue, renewable energy and much more.
Watch a video about the CINUK programme (YouTube)
Trusted research and innovation
To protect the UK’s intellectual property, sensitive research, people and infrastructure, UKRI has established our trusted research and innovation work programme. This ensures that UKRI complies with the UK National Security and Investment Act (2021), develops and provides guidance for researchers and businesses, and aligns our work with others in the sector for a coordinated approach.
Through Research England, we provide support and funding to enable universities to respond to these issues, for example funding Cranfield University to develop export controls training for the sector.
Influencing global research and innovation policy
UKRI has an active voice in shaping global research and innovation policy, including through membership of global networks such as the Global Research Council (GRC), Science Europe and OECD Global Science Forum.
These enable us to develop, share, and learn best practice on important topics such as:
- equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI)
- Responsible Research Assessment (Global Research Council)
- learning lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic (OCDE)
We enable UK universities to have a prominent voice in shaping the global research and innovation landscape. Research England provides grant funding to support Universities UK International to maintain and grow critical international research and knowledge exchange partnerships globally.
We also support UK universities to share global best practice, for example via TenU, a collaboration between 10 leading Technology Transfer Offices in the UK, US and Belgium.
Case study: supporting a global dialogue on Responsible Research Assessment
UKRI, led by Research England, played an instrumental role in bringing the topic of Responsible Research Assessment (RRA) to the attention of the Global Research Council.
This led to the establishment of a working group on RRA, initially co-chaired by UKRI, which is developing a common definition for RRA, encouraging sharing of best practice and helping to baseline and measure progress on the implementation of RRA principles globally.
Evolving our international offer
Both research and innovation themselves and the international context within which we operate are rapidly changing, so we continually seek to learn and improve our international offer. As an evidence-driven organisation, a central element of this work is monitoring and evaluating our existing mechanisms, projects and programmes.
Examples include evaluations of:
- the Fund for International Collaboration
- the GCRF Growing Research Capability programme
- our investments in the ESRF and European XFEL facilities
Amongst other things, the GCRF evaluation has shown that the fund was an early leader in fostering equitable partnerships. We are embedding learning from this as we further develop our equitable partnerships approach, and deliver new joint funding calls under ISPF.