Ministers ‘must retain some control’ in devolved innovation push

The UK government will have to retain some central control over devolved innovation spending and find ways to ensure weaker areas also benefit, experts have said, as universities await more detail on how one of Andy Burnham’s key priorities will affect the sector.

Chancellor John Healey is expected to announce a devolution push at the Budget this week, with a promised White Paper outlining more of the government’s plans to follow, including more detail on the role of research and innovation.

A £1 billion pot, administered by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), has already been announced to be spent over four years to develop “globally significant” clusters of innovation. A UKRI-led £500 million Local Innovation Partnership Fund will also be fully devolved to mayoral authorities from 2028.

But questions remain over how much power ministers will be prepared to cede to the regions, and if local authorities are capable of handling significant responsibilities in this space.

Science minister Chris McDonald has confirmed that the £1 billion clusters pot will be “held centrally” and distributed among the relevant authorities by Westminster.

Nancy Rothwell, deputy chair of the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council, welcomed this move.

The former vice-chancellor at the University of Manchester told Times Higher Education that she supported regions proposing their own innovation programmes but with “some central coordination to make sure that not every region says: ‘We’re the best at artificial intelligence and we’re going to do AI.’”

Rothwell said coordination was also needed for “quality control to make sure the projects are going in the right direction”. She stressed that these “are innovation, not research projects, so there needs to be evidence of contribution to [economic] growth [and] to jobs”.

In a hearing of the House of Commons’ Science and Technology Committee last week, McDonald said figuring out what constitutes a cluster was a “live conversation” and has warned that there will be “winners and losers” among the regions.

Rothwell said it is “always difficult” with “limited funds because…you can’t spread it very thinly”. But “most regions have got something that they’re good at”, she said, suggesting that some areas could form partnerships to benefit from the funding.

She pointed out that Manchester and Cambridge have a partnership “but it could be Leeds and Doncaster”, adding that weaker areas should “look to partner with a stronger region”.

Burnham mentioned both the Manchester-Cambridge and London-Warwick partnerships in his “Innovation Nation” speech in which he asked UKRI to divert funds to regional innovation hubs.

Richard Jones, emeritus professor of materials physics and innovation policy at the University of Manchester, told THE that he viewed the prime minister’s highlighting of such inter-regional partnerships “as a recognition that we do need to make sure there’s a join-up of innovation efforts across the country”.

For Jones, “there are outstanding issues about how we build capability and capacity to run innovation programmes at the level of Combined Mayoral Authorities”.

Rothwell said that there has been “mapping of what capabilities there are” among the regions “and they vary enormously and it could well be that leading civil servants are moved to other parts of the country”. Then “smart people” could build up those capabilities, she suggested.

Johnny Rich, director of the ResearchPlus group of universities, said he believed that the Department for Business, Science and Innovation “has a profound desire to devolve some of the research budget”, adding that this prompted “some things to be extremely cautionary about”.

Rich said he thinks that innovation funding at a local level is “good” because it builds on existing “relationships and partnerships between individual institutions, employers, [small to medium sized enterprises]” and the tertiary sector.

His chief concern on the intention to devolve research spending is the “capacity of local authorities to take on such a complex area”, when “some mayoral authorities are struggling to deal with far simpler areas of policy and delivery”.

Importantly, he said, the Haldane principle – in which research funding decisions are made by experts rather than politicians – “is sacrosanct [and] one of the reasons we have such good research in this country”.

He said there is a risk of going against that if you “devolve too many of the decisions around research”.

There is some confusion in Whitehall over the expected date of the White Paper, which has also been called a “delivery plan” in some areas of government. It follows the “rewiring the state” document released over the summer, and could appear as early as next week or in December, according to conflicting sources. 

Andy Westwood, a former adviser to Labour ministers, said the coming White Paper was also important because it “sets out the context within which HE policy will sit” – with strengthened mayoral authorities and a much heavier focus across government on driving regional growth.

He said the £1 billion fund “may be just a down payment” to help build infrastructure and capability but successful clusters that have emerged in the past have “also relied on significant blue skies funding”.

“They will need more if they are to be sustained and if they are to grow. But while much of this doesn’t have to be fully devolved it’s clear that mayors and the needs of places will play a much bigger part in determining spending overall and also the allocation of research funds from both inside and outside UKRI.”

frances.jones@timeshighereducation.com