Key findings of the Nurse review of research funding

'Ensuring a Successful UK Research Endeavour', the report of Sir Paul Nurse on his review of UK research funding, has been published.

Sir Paul was tasked with reviewing the way that research councils collaborate with other funders and with considering how links between funding and UK economic interests could be made closer.

The chief recommendations in his report, published on 19 November 2015, were:

  • an overarching body, Research UK, should be established to coordinate the existing research councils, and could perhaps take on responsibility for running the next Research Excellence Framework
  • a government ministerial committee should be created to link policymakers with researchers

Other key recommendations in the report include:

  • inter- and multi-disciplinary research is to be encouraged
  • diversity of researchers, methods and research locations should also be encouraged
  • funders must recognise that high-quality research takes time and needs long-term investment
  • research councils need to improve the provision of high-quality peer review
  • societal impact of research is important but should not be over-used as a funding criteria, particularly for 'discovery research'
  • research councils need to spped up the grant assessment process and make their processes more transparent
  • researchers should engage more with business and with Innovate UK

Read the full report.

Posted in: