The UK’s new science minister Chris McDonald has criticised the process used to select research grants as a “value-destroying activity”, saying he wants to see “faster outcomes” that will ultimately mean that “a smaller number of bigger, longer-term investments” are funded.
In his first major speech since he was appointed by new prime minister Andy Burnham in July, the Stockton North MP told vice-chancellors at Universities UK’s annual conference that he believed the current system of funding was letting down researchers, requiring them to spend too long applying for grants rather than doing research itself.
“There is a trade-off between efficient public spending, research quality and time at the bench,” said McDonald, a chemical engineer who worked at Tata Steel and then the Materials Processing Institute, a private research lab, before entering Parliament in July 2024.
“Speaking candidly, I believe that our competitive funding system only delivers two out of the three. It protects the efficiency of public money. It assures quality, but it doesn’t use researchers’ time wisely,” he said on 10 September.
Calling for a “system that prioritises faster research outcomes over spending efficiency, whilst maintaining quality”, McDonald told the audience at Nottingham Trent University that he was unveiling “practical steps towards a smoother and simpler system” that would allow UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to put “more power into the hands of those actually running research programmes for targeted funding”.
