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Social Science: Research

Answer

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy funds research primarily through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Within UKRI the main funders of social science research are the Economics and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), and Research England.

The following table shows the value of research grants from AHRC and ESRC related to social science awarded to universities in England in each of the last five years. It also shows the notional allocation of Quality-related Research (QR) funding from Research England to the social sciences in universities in England over the past five years. QR funding is unhypothecated and individual institutions decide how it should be spent on research activities according to their own priorities.

Year	Value of awarded grants (by Financial Year) £	QR allocation (by academic year) £
2014/2015	153,738,462	270,300,000
2015/2016	106,861,835	276,500,000
2016/2017	181,616,983	279,000,000
2017/2018	199,971,534	281,200,000
2018/2019	247,678,306	291,300,000

While these are the primary funders of social science research, other research councils within UKRI provide funding for projects that involve a significant contribution from the social sciences. UKRI encourages interdisciplinary research, including the integration of social science components into other research programmes, when this adds value to the proposals.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

HL15726

Session

2017-19

Subjects

Finance Universities Research Social science

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk