I shall speak to Amendments 485A, 496 and 499A in my name. I welcome the government amendments to include knowledge exchange in UKRI, but I do not feel that they go far enough. The Minister mentioned the Higher Education Innovation Fund, which is currently distributed to universities by HEFCE on the basis of encouraging interactions with industry and business, which includes knowledge transfer, collaboration support for registration of intellectual property, entrepreneurship and a range of other things.
Historically, HEIF has been assessed as delivering a benefit to the UK of £7.30 for every £1 invested. It is mentioned in the new industrial strategy as one of the routes to address the concern that the UK is
excellent in research but not innovation. Indeed, the Green Paper is looking to explore the expansion of HEIF. This news will be celebrated by UK higher education institutions of all kinds, from the highly research-intensive to the more applied and business-focused institutions.
I understand from discussions with the Minister of State and the Bill team that HEIF will continue to be delivered by Research England. This is again good news, except that in Clause 91 Research England can provide financial support only for research or facilities for the purposes of, or in connection with, research. This needs to be addressed at the Research England level in Clause 91 and for UKRI in Clause 87.
The government amendments in this group are very much appreciated as they go some way towards addressing this issue by extending the UKRI and Research England support to knowledge exchange. However, I am not quite sure what the definition of “knowledge exchange” is. I believe that HEIF as currently applied delivers benefit some way beyond what one might assume is included in “knowledge exchange”. It is used to support entrepreneurship activities among undergraduates, postgraduates, researchers and university staff. It helps to support initiatives such as “dragons’ den” competitions for start-up companies in universities. It supports working with local enterprise partnerships on business growth in the regions. I am not sure whether all of these activities can be classified as knowledge exchange, but they are all important in ensuring that our universities play a strong role in stimulating innovation, entrepreneurship and economic growth locally and nationally.
My amendments would go further than the Government’s proposals to ensure that the excellent work done under HEIF can continue—and, indeed, to allow Research England to distribute other such funds in future with equally broad scope for encouraging university-business links and entrepreneurial activities. I do not believe that these amendments have different objectives from those of the Government, but I ask the Minister to reflect on whether the wording of the government amendments could go further to ensure that they cover the quite broad scope of HEIF as it is currently very effectively used.