Research funding
Public funding for research in English higher education is administered under a 'dual support' system.
- HEFCE
Under this system we provide block grant funding to support the research infrastructure and enable institutions to undertake ground-breaking research in keeping with their own mission. - Research projects
The Research Councils, charities, the European Union and government departments provide grants for specific research projects and programmes.
HEFCE research funding 2010-11
In 2010-11 HEFCE will distribute £1,603 million quality-related (QR) research funding. Details of how this money has been allocated are provided in our announcement on recurrent grants (HEFCE 2010/08).
- £1,097 million for mainstream QR grant
- £33 million for London weighting for mainstream QR
- £205 million for the research degree programme (RDP) supervision fund
- £198 million for the charity support element
- £64 million for the business research element
- £6 million for research libraries.
The annual quality-related research funding data and funding method are available.
More information on HEFCE's funding method is available in 'Funding higher education in England' (HEFCE 2008/33).
Autonomy and flexibility
This enables a degree of research stability and independence not provided by other funding sources, and ensures that universities:
- drive innovation and respond flexibly to changing needs as autonomous institutions
- invest in new and emerging areas
- grow and support new talent and protect important research areas.
The flexibility of this funding provides universities with the resources to:
- support the cutting edge of knowledge
- sustain responsive research
- sustain a world-class research environment
- develop people and skills.
Securing world-class research in UK universities
Produced in collaboration with Universities UK and the other UK funding bodies, our publication 'Securing world-class research in UK universities: Exploring the impact of block grant funding' illustrates the wide variety of ways in which universities use this funding. It highlights how QR funding underpins the most productive and efficient publicly funded research system in the G8 and enables the UK to continue to compete and thrive on the world stage.
Please note that the following amendment was made in November 2009:
name corrected for Goldsmiths, University of London.
Securing world-class research in UK universities: Exploring the impact of block grant funding
[ Download Securing world-class research in UK universities as Adobe PDF 393K | Download Securing world-class research in UK universities as MS Word 34K ]
Further information
- Research Councils and other research funding
- Latest arrangements for research capital funding
- Capital funding for research 2006-08
- Transparent Approach to Costing
Last updated 17 March 2010