Rewiring science and innovation: Principles for regional devolution of research and development

The Government has begun to set out its “devolution by default” agenda, with the publication of Rewiring the State and the Fiscal Devolution Roadmap, and all parts of public spending and responsibilities are being reviewed to inform a Devolution White Paper later this year.  

In Rewiring the State, the Government specifically proposes devolving “a substantially increased share of later-stage innovation funding” to local leaders but it is important to note that research and development (R&D) is not one thing. It includes discovery research, applied research to solve big challenges, and the translation of research into the businesses and products that improve health and wealth. Some of these require national and even international scale, if the UK is to remain globally competitive.  

Given the political commitment to devolution, and the significance of R&D to local growth, health and wellbeing, the opportunities of further devolution of R&D funding need to be explored. Conversations across the R&D sector have led Wellcome to develop the following principles that should guide the devolution of R&D funding in the UK.

National, and even international, competition is necessary to ensure that the best applicant-led proposals are funded. Excellence is driven by competition and this is a common approach to discovery research around the world.  

UKRI must therefore continue to deliver the UK’s competitively assessed discovery science and block grant funding. Grant application and assessment systems are burdensome even at a national scale, duplicating this regionally would lead to more time spent on bureaucracy and less time on impactful discovery and solutions. 

Regions should use devolved funding to invest in capabilities that help them compete for national discovery research funding in line with their local strategies. Depending on the region, that could mean incentivising researcher applications to certain calls, investing in people-based schemes, or mechanisms to attract researchers from across the UK and globally. 

Investment in R&D is the means to securing stronger translation of ideas into economic, health and social value. Regional devolution of R&D spending must be designed to ensure two things: public funding devolved for R&D remains dedicated to R&D and devolved funding should be used to unlock additional private investment. 

Funding devolved for R&D should retain a clear and protected purpose, while giving local leaders meaningful discretion over how it is used within their budgets. The emphasis should be on transparent accountability, rather than over reach from the centre, but R&D funding should be spent on R&D. 

Private sector R&D investment depends on both strong local research capability and sustained public investment. Devolving later-stage innovation funding should reinforce this combination by enabling local leaders to build connections between government, academia and industry, back opportunities with the greatest potential for local growth, and attract further private investment.

Devolution should build on existing R&D strengths and clusters to build critical mass and ensure global competitiveness. The UK is small enough geographically to be well connected and large enough to continue to be globally excellent. 

At the Innovation Nation Summit on 9 October, the Prime Minister spoke about identifying the clusters around the UK with the potential to become truly world leading and that is the right approach. Devolution should be used to pursue specialisation and clustering, helping regions to invest in established or emerging areas that maximise their distinctive assets. It must avoid reproducing the full range of R&D capabilities in every region at suboptimal scales. Failing to create and nurture centres of critical mass would risk the UK losing its global competitiveness in areas like Health Sciences.  

Government and UKRI should therefore maintain a national view of capabilities, dependencies and gaps. This will require a coordinating hub to evaluate differing approaches, help regions to compare choices, and connect regional decision making. The natural home for this capability is UKRI given their whole system view, though more integration into local government will be necessary.  

Decisions about nationally significant infrastructure should remain national, but regions should have a stronger and more transparent role in decisions.  

Some facilities and resources need national scale to be most effective or efficient, for example the UK’s significant health data assets – stewarded by the Health Data Research Service – are world-leading at this scale. There are also international commitments that must be dealt with at the national level to serve the whole UK.   

There are options for including regions more in decision making. This might include mayors building coalitions across academia, local government and industry to lobby decision makers and using devolved budgets to incentivise the placement of nationally significant infrastructure in their regions. Transparent processes for the location of infrastructure should consider existing local assets, scientific quality and capability, national need, long-term viability, and regional spillover benefits.  

The most advanced devolved settlements should go to regions that have already demonstrated strong R&D capability. Likewise, regions that have not demonstrated the necessary R&D capability should not receive R&D funding in a rush to devolution.  

Decisions on the level of devolution to regions should take account of two related dimensions: the scale and critical mass of a place’s innovation assets and activity; and the strength of the partnerships, institutions and delivery arrangements available to deliver R&D. 

Every mayoral strategic authority should have access to a credible route towards greater devolved funding but this should be done carefully and incrementally alongside growing R&D capability including central government support to develop strategy, evidence, partnerships, governance, evaluation and project pipelines. 

The practical offer should vary accordingly. Some places may be ready for large, multi-year devolved settlements. Others may benefit first from co-designed programmes, capacity support or investment focused on building critical mass. The aim should be to match powers and support to what will enable each place to deliver more over time and ensure that those that are most ready to deliver are supported to do so at scale.