HomeReportResearch and innovation funding

Research and innovation funding

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funding in the North East; Research Council funds for universities with an estimate for Net Zero related projects

Net Zero Education and skills Productivity and innovation
Download as a PDF

UKRI funding in the North East

In the 2020/21 financial year:

  • The North East received £230 million of funds from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) sources
  • just over 44% was from research councils, more than 37% was from Research England and the remainder was from Innovate UK
  • the North East total represented about 3.4% of total UKRI spend in England, the majority of which (58.7%) funded projects in the London, South East and East of England regions
  • the UKRI spend per resident in the wider North East region (including Tees Valley) was the fourth lowest among the nine English regions
  • the North East regional rate was less than half that of both London and the South East region
  • the North East total spend was 7.1% higher than in 2019/20 but this was less than half the percentage increase in the three south eastern English regions (15.1%).

Research council university funding

The UKRI Gateway to Research (GtR) database provides information about individual projects funded by UKRI. The data in this section is a summary of a subgroup of these projects: those with funds provided by the seven research councils to the four North East universities (Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria and Sunderland):

  • Between 2013 and 2022, research councils provided £790 million of funding to North East universities
  • the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council provided almost 43% of these funds, with the Medical Research Council providing the second largest funding total
  • during this period, the start year of projects with the greatest total funding was 2019
  • projects starting in 2021 had the lowest total funds of any of the ten years.

Net zero related university funding

Projects in UKRI Gateway to Research can be classified using up to five subject categories. The North East LEP has identified net zero related projects by using these classifications and, where no category has been chosen, by using project titles. This results in estimates of funding provided by research councils to North East universities:

  • In the ten years up to and including 2022, the value of research council funding for net zero related projects in North East universities was estimated to be £82.2 million
  • the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council provided almost 71% of this total
  • most of the rest (23% of the overall total) was provided by the Natural Environment Research Council

Research Council net zero related awards to North East universities (£m), 2013 to 2022, by funder