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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to help facilitate collaboration between universities and the private sector.

The Government has taken action across a range of areas – skills, research, infrastructure and facilities, knowledge exchange, access to finance, intellectual property and tax incentives - to ensure the strong development of university-business collaboration and the application of research to support sustainable economic growth.

At the Autumn Statement, the Government committed an extra £2 billion a year in research and development by 2020- 21, including for the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. The Chancellor confirmed a further £100m support for collaboration between universities across the range of knowledge exchange activity and a further £100m for Innovate UK for the Biomedical Catalyst.

The creation of UK Research & Innovation - bringing together the Research Councils, Innovate UK and the research and knowledge exchange functions of the Higher Education Funding Council for England is an opportunity to take a strategic approach and to simplify funding arrangements for research, innovation and commercialisation.