BU Research Blog

Ahead of the Queen’s speech on 18 May, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has published a press statement outlining the main content of its white paper on higher education. In it BIS said that the government wanted to create a single organisation called UK Research and Innovation to bring together the seven research councils and Innovate UK under a single umbrella, although ensuring that the agencies retained “their identities and delegated budgets”.

At the same time BIS proposed stripping the Higher Education Funding Council for England of its research and knowledge exchange functions, including QR funding, which will be transferred to UK Research and Innovation.

The white paper, called Success as a Knowledge Economy, follows a public consultation launched in November.

By the end of the week, BU’s Policy and Public Affairs office will provide an analysis of what this means for the university, and what actions will follow.  Keep an eye on the research blog for further news and details of internal workshops to be held.  Wonkhe has published a blog outlining the ‘hopes and fears’ of the white paper which you can see here. The blog includes a comment from BU’s Jane Forster.

You can read a summary of the white paper in an article published by Research Professional.