Research: Finance

(asked on 24th May 2021) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what tools his Department uses to calculate to effect of investment in research funding on economic growth in the UK.


Answered by
Amanda Solloway Portrait
Amanda Solloway
Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
This question was answered on 1st June 2021

The Department requires a business case be prepared for funding proposals to assess value for money and subsequently monitors and evaluates programmes to understand their impact including any impact on jobs and productivity where possible.

The Department also commissions studies to assess the impact of research funding. For example, macroeconomic modelling of the 2.4% target by Cambridge Econometrics for BEIS suggested that there would be increases in GDP, employment, and productivity from increased R&D. It is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/research-and-development-macroeconomic-modelling-of-24-target

Other research conducted shows that public investment in R&D achieves high social rates of return, with £1 of public investment in R&D eventually leveraging around £2 of additional private sector investment.

Reports are available at:

Reticulating Splines