Unspecified proposals by UK Research and Innovation to phase out some “specific” QR funding streams could reduce institutional diversity and weaken regional research capacity, specialist universities have warned.

Late last year, UKRI to overhaul how it invests money to support three core R&D priorities, which former science minister Patrick Vallance dubbed “buckets”. These are supporting curiosity-driven research, government and societal priorities and innovative companies.

The overhaul means that from 2027 to 2028, “some specific, non-recurrent Research England funds (worth around 3 per cent of total QR funding) will be phased out”, UKRI has said in its annual budget explainer, published in December. The move would align with government plans for higher education laid out in its White Paper on post-16 skills and education, published last year, the funder added.

These non-current funds are thought to include the Enhancing Research Culture (ERC), Policy Support, and Participatory Research QR streams. Despite publishing the budget explainer nine months ago, Research England declined to confirm this supposition but told ����Vlog that it will offer clarity on these funds in the coming months.

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Speaking to THE, Emile Bojesen, director of GuildHE, which represents smaller higher education institutions, said the removal of these funds “risks reducing institutional diversity, weakening local and regional research capacity, and concentrating opportunity within parts of the sector that are already best placed to compete for funding”.

He explained that, despite their modest size, such funding streams “have enabled smaller, specialist and teaching-intensive institutions to strengthen research environments, develop capability, support collaboration and contribute more fully to the wider research ecosystem”.

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He added that the investments had been “strategically important in broadening participation and ensuring excellence can emerge in different institutional contexts”, and axeing them could undermine the new government’s regional growth agenda.

In the budget explainer, UKRI said that despite losing the QR funds, universities will “continue to benefit from the previous level of investment through an increase in applicant-led grants in bucket one” and other programmes.

But Rachel Persad, head of research policy at GuildHE, said its members’ “scale, specialism and teaching intensity” meant that they have “little flexibility to support their research environments from other budgets”. A GuildHE analysis has found that its institutions could lose up to 50 per cent of their current QR allocation if the assumed cuts go ahead.

The changes come at a time of intense pressure on core QR funding, distributed on the basis of Research Excellence Framework results.

Maria Delgado, vice-principal (research and knowledge exchange) at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, called the specialist QR funding streams “hugely significant” for her institution, which uses them to support early-career researcher-led projects and to promote integrity in the design and delivery of initiatives.

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The funds were hypothecated and couldn’t be absorbed into mainstream institutional costs, she said. “It seems rather strange to be phasing out funds like Enhancing Research Culture at a time when SPRE (the strategy, people and research environment element) in REF 2029 is placing such an importance on a healthy research culture and research environment.”

Julie Northam, head of research at Health Sciences University (HSU) in Bournemouth, said the proposed changes would reduce her institution’s Research England funding by 36 per cent (£120,000). She suggested that this amount would potentially stop the institution and other specialist institutions from participating fully in the research system.

The early-career funding had helped HSU build the research capacity needed to lead the establishment of the National Centre for Chiropractic Research, a consortium of five universities strengthening collaboration and research across the sector, she said. Another example was supporting early-stage, interdisciplinary projects to a phase where they can attract major funding in areas such as musculoskeletal health, smoking cessation during pregnancy and oral health inequalities.

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Efrosini Protopapa, director of research at The Place, the London Contemporary Dance School, said: “We are investing in research in a discipline that is currently shrinking in larger universities: this is dance.”

Protopapa said that The Place is preparing for its first REF submission and was counting on the ECR funds as its “core and only funding to develop our research culture and output, alongside grants”.

“Cutting ECR will be detrimental for those preparing for their first REF submissions, who do not have any other funds on which to draw to invest in their growth,” she said.

David Prior, director of research at Falmouth University, echoed the GuildHE analysis and added that the Policy Support Fund had been used to create a creative industries policy and engagement lead with Cornwall Council and the Local Enterprise Partnership.

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“That role strengthened the evidence base, policy relationships and strategic coordination around Cornwall’s creative industries,” he said. Following a Department for Culture, Media and Sport secondment, “a full-time role has now been incorporated into Cornwall Council’s staffing model”.

frances.jones@timeshigheducation.com