The April 2018 to March 2019 findings offer more detail than the previous year, covering most of UKRI’s activities. The findings include information on funding from the research councils, Innovate UK and Research England.
We amended the data in this report on 28 April 2021. This is because we found some invalid postcodes in our system for existing organisations in receipt of research council funding. The organisations were not assigned a nomenclature of territorial units for statistics levels (NUTS).
To correct this we amended the regional distribution of UKRI spend report. We updated tables one and six, together with figures one, two, 10 and 11. We also updated the data you can download from this page.
Regional distribution of spend report
The report:
- maps the distribution of research and development spend across the country
- gives contextual data for the different types of UK funding.
Analysis shows that all nations and regions of the UK benefit from some UKRI support.
When reviewing the data you must consider the regional contexts explained in the report. We explain how the data was produced in the methodology section of the report.
Read the regional distribution of spend report.
Regional distribution of spend data
The financial data is the amount of funding spent in the financial year April 2018 to March 2019. It is not necessarily the amount being allocated in that year, except for Research England and the quality-related equivalent data from the devolved administrations (DAs).
Research council spend
NUTS 1 areas
Research council spend for all all NUTS 1 areas
Research council spend by number of research organisations for all all NUTS 1 areas
Research council spend by local gross value added for all all NUTS 1 areas
Research council spend per person for all all NUTS 1 areas
NUTS 2 areas
Research council spend for all NUTS 2 areas
Innovate UK spend
NUTS 1 areas
Innovate UK spend for all NUTS 1 areas
Innovate UK spend by total number of businesses for all NUTS 1 areas
Innovate UK spend by number of research and development-active businesses for all NUTS 1 areas
Innovate UK spend by local gross value added for all NUTS 1 areas
Innovate UK spend per person for all NUTS 1 areas
NUTS 2 areas
Innovate UK spend for all NUTS 2 areas
Research England and equivalent data from devolved administrations
NUTS 1 areas, all UK
Funding data you can examine includes:
- quality-related and quality-related equivalent funding
- quality-related and quality-related equivalent funding by number of higher education providers in receipt of quality-related funding
- quality-related and quality-related equivalent funding by number of researchers.
NUTS 1 areas, England only
Funding data you can examine includes:
- Higher Education Innovation Fund
- Higher Education Innovation Fund and quality-related funding
- Higher Education Innovation Fund and quality-related funding by local gross value added
- Higher Education Innovation Fund and quality-related funding per person
- Higher Education Innovation Fund by number of higher education providers in receipt of funding
- Higher Education Innovation Fund by number of researchers.
Overall UKRI spend
UKRI spend for the whole of the UK
Data sources, notes and definitions
Research councils
Some research council grants have negative values because a sanction has been placed on the grant holder.
All the research council spend files include data from UKRI administrative systems funding data.
Contextual data sources
Number of research organisations data is from the Global Research Identifier Database (GRID). Find out which organisations are included in GRID.
Local gross value added figures are from the Office for National Statistics regional gross value added data set.
Per person data is from the:
- Office for National Statistics estimates of the population for the UK, England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
- Office for National Statistics population estimates – small area based.
Innovate UK
All the Innovate UK spend data files include data from Innovate UK Data Services.
Contextual data sources
Total number of businesses data is from business population estimates 2018.
Number of research and development active businesses is taken from HMRC corporate tax: research and development tax credits statistics.
Local gross value added figures are from Office for National Statistics regional gross value added (income approach) data set.
Per person data is from:
- Office for National Statistics estimates of the population for the UK, England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
- Office for National Statistics population estimates – small area based.
Research England and devolved administrations
The Research England and devolved administrations data used was originally for the academic year but has been adjusted to cover the financial year. Find out more about the data methodology in the regional distribution of UKRI spend report.
For the Research England and devolved administrations quality-related and quality-related equivalent funding by number of higher education institutions in receipt of quality-related funding, the total number of higher education institutions receiving quality-related funding in September 2017 to July 2018 is 155, compared to 152 in September 2018 to July 2019. We used the September 2018 to July 2019 number of 152 for the information available from this web page.
Researcher definitions
Researchers are defined as the combination of staff and student researchers.
Staff researchers are defined as staff who are on an academic contract that is research only or an academic contract that is both teaching and research.
Student researchers are defined as those completing a postgraduate research degree.
NUTS 1 data sources
Quality-related and quality-related equivalent funding is from Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) income data.
Higher Education Innovation Fund is from Research England recurrent grants for academic year 2018 to 2019.
Higher Education Innovation Fund and quality-related funding is from HESA and Research England.
Higher Education Innovation Fund and quality-related funding by local gross value added is from:
- HESA
- Research England
- Office for National Statistics regional gross value added (income approach) data set.
Higher Education Innovation Fund and quality-related funding per person is from:
- HESA
- Research England
- Office for National Statistics estimates of the population for the UK, England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
- Office for National Statistics population estimates – small area based.
Quality-related and quality-related equivalent funding by number of higher education institutions in receipt of quality-related funding is from HESA income data.
Quality-related and quality-related equivalent funding by number of researchers is from:
- HESA income data
- HESA HE academic staff by HE provider and employment conditions 2014 to 2015 to 2019 to 2020
- HESA Who’s studying in Higher Education?
Higher Education Innovation Fund by number of higher education institutions in receipt of funding is from HESA.
Higher Education Innovation Fund by number of researchers is from HESA.
NUTS 2 data sources
Quality-related and quality-related equivalent funding is from HESA income data.
Higher Education Innovation Fund is from Research England recurrent grants for academic year 2018 to 2019.
Higher Education Innovation Fund and quality-related funding is from:
- HESA income data
- Research England recurrent grants for academic year 2018 to 2019.
Overall UKRI spend data
The overall UKRI data covers the year April 2018 to March 2019. It includes:
- research councils
- Innovate UK
- quality-related
- quality-related equivalent.
It does not include:
- the Higher Education Innovation Fund, which only covers England
- spend data on research infrastructure capital and upkeep investment.