Social Science: Research
(asked on 14th May 2019) - View Source
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much funding they provided to universities in England for social science research in each of the last five years.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy funds research primarily through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Within UKRI the main funders of social science research are the Economics and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), and Research England.
The following table shows the value of research grants from AHRC and ESRC related to social science awarded to universities in England in each of the last five years. It also shows the notional allocation of Quality-related Research (QR) funding from Research England to the social sciences in universities in England over the past five years. QR funding is unhypothecated and individual institutions decide how it should be spent on research activities according to their own priorities.
Year | Value of awarded grants (by Financial Year) £ | QR allocation (by academic year) £ |
2014/2015 | 153,738,462 | 270,300,000 |
2015/2016 | 106,861,835 | 276,500,000 |
2016/2017 | 181,616,983 | 279,000,000 |
2017/2018 | 199,971,534 | 281,200,000 |
2018/2019 | 247,678,306 | 291,300,000 |
While these are the primary funders of social science research, other research councils within UKRI provide funding for projects that involve a significant contribution from the social sciences. UKRI encourages interdisciplinary research, including the integration of social science components into other research programmes, when this adds value to the proposals.