Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to Answer 6 December 2022 to Question 97528 on Research: Finance and with reference to the Levelling Up White Paper, page 6 stating that 40 per cent increase in R&D pledged for outside of the Greater South East, which R&D spending assessment methodology will this use.

The Government has pledged to increase domestic public investment in R&D outside the Greater South East by at least 40% by 2030. This increase in R&D spending will be measured by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Government Research and Development (GovERD) survey of government departments. The ONS, which is an independent body, is currently in the process of improving the GovERD survey to ensure data is collected on a regional level, with estimates for public R&D spend for each of the 12 nations and regions of the UK. ONS will publish baseline estimates from this work detailing public funded R&D expenditure at International Territorial Level 1 in January 2023.