Circular letter
Talent and Research Stabilisation Fund Allocation – tranche 1, 28 November 2022.
Dear Vice-Chancellor or Principal
Notice of funding
1. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is writing to you to inform you that you are eligible to receive funding from the Talent and Research Stabilisation Fund. Government has allocated £30 million to launch this new fund in order to support the UK’s research sector to retain and attract talent in an environment of ongoing uncertainty regarding the UK’s association to Horizon Europe.
2. There will be light touch monitoring of Talent and Research Stabilisation funding. UKRI is interested in understanding more about what activity is undertaken by universities and research organisations to support, retain and attract talent, and to ensure that funds are used in a manner consistent with funding objectives. A short template will be distributed approximately 3 months after payment and should be completed and returned for end May 2023
3. Funding is distributed across eligible universities and research institutions. The fund does not intend to replace funding on the scale that they might have expected to successfully win through Horizon Europe association. Rather, the key objective of funding is to help institutions retain and attract talented people during this period of uncertainty.
4. UKRI is delivering this funding on behalf of the UK government using powers under Section 93 of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017.
5. Funding can be used to support any field of research (social sciences and humanities, life sciences, physical and engineering sciences), and therefore recipients should have regard to how best to support and retain talent working in disciplines that are most impacted by the loss of Horizon Europe funding. Areas for potential investment by beneficiaries include, but are not limited to:
- support established principal investigators and their teams to conduct ‘high risk, high reward’ research that has the potential to create a step change in knowledge
- support principal investigators at the stage at which they are starting their own independent research team
- supporting programmes to train doctoral candidates and early career researchers
6. Eligibility is defined by universities that have made a submission to the Research Excellence Framework 2021 or organisations that have the UKRI status of ‘independent research organisation’, ‘public sector research establishment’ or ‘research institute’.
7. Eligible beneficiaries have a historic track record of funding in the Horizon 2020 Pillar 1 mono-beneficiary schemes that provide direct support to research talent. The funding will be distributed using a formula funding method that uses historic performance in the following Horizon 2020 schemes to determine recipients:
- ERC Starting Grant
- ERC Consolidator Grant
- ERC Advanced Grant
- MSCA Individual Fellowship
8. There is a maximum allocation of 5% of total funding.
9. There is a minimum allocation of £50,000.
10. We recognise that for those less familiar with this level of investment, spending this allocation within the financial year 2022 to 2023 may be a challenge, however recipients may count activity from 21 November 2022, the date of the
Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy announcement of funding, towards their spend.
11. While we encourage providers to consider how they might make best use of the funding, we do offer the opportunity for providers to opt out and choose not to receive a Talent and Research Stabilisation funding allocation.
12. In order to opt out of receiving Talent and Research Stabilisation funding, please complete the opt out form.
This offers a simple checkbox opt-out. Please complete the form by 13 January 2023.
13. To receive funding, you will be required to complete the attached ‘organisation creation form’, as verification checks are needed before payments can be made.
When completing the form, the ‘Address for Purchase Orders’ section should be filled in, but please note the payment will be by bank transfer. Please mark any lines that are not applicable with ‘N/A’.
The completed form should be sent to p2pdatabasemanagement@uksbs.co.uk by 13 January 2023.
14. Allocations to institutions are shown in annex A. Payment will be made to universities and research organisations in early 2023.
15. In making use of the funding, organisations are required to consider equality, diversity and inclusion and be mindful of their obligations under the Public Sector Equality Duty.
16. Funding organisations must ensure that their use of funding is compliant with all relevant legislation. This includes legislation applicable in the UK, such as the Subsidy Control Act 2022, that regulates the granting by a public sector body of any advantage which threatens to, or actually, distorts competition in the UK or any other country or countries.
17. In making use of the funding organisations must do all things necessary to ensure funding is not directed through any commercially oriented functions within the funding organisation, nor is it used to support commercial activity.
18. Questions about Talent and Research Stabilisation funding, allocations and eligible spend, should be directed to international@ukri.org.
Yours sincerely,
Christopher Smith
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Chair and UKRI International Champion
Annex A: allocations to institutions
UK Research and Innovation is included as the legal entity for payments to constituent research institutes.
| Institution | Allocation (£) |
|---|---|
| University of Oxford | 1,500,000 |
| University of Cambridge | 1,500,000 |
| University College London | 1,500,000 |
| University of Edinburgh | 1,500,000 |
| Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine | 1,500,000 |
| University of Bristol | 1,434,144 |
| The University of Manchester | 1,241,879 |
| University of Exeter | 1,012,998 |
| King’s College London | 990,000 |
| The University of Birmingham | 956,107 |
| University of Glasgow | 952,837 |
| The University of Warwick | 910,730 |
| The University of Leeds | 739,505 |
| The Francis Crick Institute Limited | 697,033 |
| The London School of Economics and Political Science | 682,691 |
| University of Southampton | 549,931 |
| University of St Andrews | 533,813 |
| Queen Mary University of London | 518,118 |
| The University of Sheffield | 440,091 |
| University of York | 422,843 |
| University of Sussex | 415,038 |
| University of Newcastle upon Tyne | 403,292 |
| University of Durham | 394,685 |
| Cardiff University | 389,836 |
| The University of Liverpool | 374,678 |
| UK Research and Innovation | 356,591 |
| University of Nottingham, The | 297,401 |
| The University of East Anglia | 293,447 |
| John Innes Centre | 253,889 |
| Heriot-Watt University | 248,446 |
| University of Dundee | 246,804 |
| The University of Reading | 228,086 |
| The University of Lancaster | 196,312 |
| School of Oriental and African Studies | 189,267 |
| The University of Kent | 187,796 |
| The University of Leicester | 174,269 |
| The University of Bath | 168,475 |
| London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine | 168,318 |
| Royal Holloway and Bedford New College | 165,648 |
| Queen’s University of Belfast | 161,177 |
| Aston University | 136,550 |
| London Business School | 119,770 |
| Goldsmiths’ College | 118,590 |
| Marine Biological Association of the UK | 99,202 |
| The Babraham Institute | 98,651 |
| The University of Huddersfield | 94,867 |
| The Sainsbury Laboratory | 76,522 |
| Liverpool John Moores University | 75,916 |
| Swansea University | 74,853 |
| National Oceanography Centre | 70,700 |
| Birkbeck College | 69,848 |
| Natural History Museum | 66,162 |
| The James Hutton Institute | 60,970 |
| Genome Research Limited | 58,443 |
| The Royal Veterinary College | 58,435 |
| Prifysgol Aberystwyth | 55,513 |
| The University of Surrey | 54,786 |
| City, University of London | 54,623 |
| University of Strathclyde | 54,594 |
| Institute for Fiscal Studies | 52,869 |
| Bangor University | 51,474 |
| University of Portsmouth | 50,484 |
| University of Stirling | 50,000 |
| University of London | 50,000 |
| University of Aberdeen | 50,000 |
| The University of Hull | 50,000 |
| De Montfort University | 50,000 |
| The Open University | 50,000 |
| Bournemouth University | 50,000 |
| Coventry University | 50,000 |
| University of Lincoln | 50,000 |
| Brunel University London | 50,000 |
| The University of Essex | 50,000 |
| Institute of Development Studies | 50,000 |
| University of Wolverhampton | 50,000 |
| The University of Bradford | 50,000 |
| British Museum | 50,000 |
| Nottingham Trent University | 50,000 |
| University of East London | 50,000 |
| Cranfield University | 50,000 |
| Diamond Light Source Limited | 50,000 |
| Quadram Institute Bioscience | 50,000 |
| University of Brighton | 50,000 |
| Institute of Cancer Research: Royal Cancer Hospital (The) | 50,000 |
| Manchester Metropolitan University | 50,000 |
| Anglia Ruskin University Higher Education Corporation | 50,000 |
| The University of Westminster | 50,000 |
| University of Keele | 50,000 |
| Kingston University | 50,000 |
| University of Plymouth | 50,000 |
| Royal Botanic Gardens Kew | 50,000 |
| University of Hertfordshire | 50,000 |
| Earlham Institute | 50,000 |
| University of South Wales/Prifysgol De Cymru | 50,000 |
| Loughborough University | 50,000 |
| London South Bank University | 50,000 |
| Oxford Brookes University | 50,000 |
| University of Central Lancashire | 50,000 |
| St. George’s Hospital Medical School | 50,000 |
| The Scottish Association For Marine Science | 50,000 |
| Roehampton University | 50,000 |
| University of Northumbria at Newcastle | 50,000 |
| Rothamsted Research Limited | 50,000 |
| National Physical Laboratory Limited | 50,000 |
| Glasgow Caledonian University | 50,000 |
| University of the West of England, Bristol | 50,000 |
| Royal Northern College of Music | 50,000 |
| Plymouth Marine Laboratory Limited | 50,000 |
| University of the Highlands and Islands | 50,000 |
| Cardiff Metropolitan University | 50,000 |
| Bath Spa University | 50,000 |
| University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust | 50,000 |
| University of Ulster | 50,000 |
| Canterbury Christ Church University | 50,000 |
| Courtauld Institute of Art | 50,000 |
| Edinburgh Napier University | 50,000 |
| Royal College of Art(The) | 50,000 |
| University of Derby | 50,000 |
| University of Greenwich | 50,000 |
| University of Sunderland | 50,000 |
| University of Worcester | 50,000 |
| Victoria and Albert Museum | 50,000 |
| Agrifood and Biosciences Institute | 50,000 |
| Leeds Beckett University | 50,000 |
| Sheffield Hallam University | 50,000 |
| Staffordshire University | 50,000 |
| University of Salford, The | 50,000 |
| University of Gloucestershire | 50,000 |
| Middlesex University | 50,000 |
| University of Wales: Trinity Saint David | 50,000 |
| Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh | 50,000 |
| Grand total | 30,000,000 |