The government has announced new funding that will be used to boost the support for universities in areas that currently have lower levels of research and development investment.
Announced by Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan, the £60 million Regional Innovation Fund will be allocated to support the research sector, with a view to improving outcomes for communities.
The fund will be allocated relative to the size of each of the UK nations, with Research England giving 110 Universities in England a share of £48.8 million. The devolved administrations will be allocated their funding directly, with the aim of supporting local and regional economies to boost growth and productivity. The funding allocations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will amount to £5.8 million, £3.4 million, and £2 million respectively.
Alongside the announcement of the funding for research and development, the Secretary of State announced that the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is committing an additional £8 million into artificial intelligence scholarships. These will give 800 more people the opportunity to thrive in the AI sector.
These scholarships are to build on the almost 2,000 scholarships that were delivered across the last three years, thanks to £18 million of funding from the government. Students that are eligible for the scholarships will be given the ability to study a range of master’s courses across the country, with these courses teaching practical AI and data science skills, coding, programming, machine learning, health data science and AI ethics. These will be taught with the aim of preparing them for jobs of the future, whilst boosting British ambition to become an AI safety world leader.
An independent review will also be launched into sex and gender data gathering, with this being supported by the Cabinet Office and Economic and Social Research Council. The review will aim to ensure that researchers and public bodies are able to gather the information that they need to plan key services effectively, with the government relying on accurate information when it comes to informing research and policy making across a wide range of fields, including health, crime, education and the economy.
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