UKRI working to reconcile levelling up with excellence

The public funder is yet to come up with a strategy on linking places with excellence

UK Research and Innovation has yet to come up with a way to reconcile the principle of funding research excellence with the government’s ‘levelling up’ agenda, according to its chief executive, Mark Walport.

The government funder has traditionally prioritised funding the best research proposals, many of which originate from the ‘golden triangle’ of Oxford, Cambridge and London. But there is an increasing push from government to spread funding more equally around the country, to ‘level up’ left-behind areas.