DSIT does not lead defence or security cooperation with Ukraine, which is driven by other government departments under the 100 Year Partnership. DSIT is supporting Ukrainian and UK researchers and businesses through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) grants and Horizon Europe funding, which offer routes for scientific exchange.

DSIT assesses that there are multiple elements of UK collaboration between government, academia and industry that support Ukraine’s long‑term technological development, reaffirmed by the Prime Minister during the UK‑Ukraine Strategic Dialogue on 17 March. These include, but are not limited to: TechBridge, which connects tech businesses and has helped Ukrainian startups secure over £10 million in funding; ResearchBridge, which links researchers in priority areas to build sustainable partnerships; deepening cooperation between our space agencies on joint projects to support the peaceful uses of outer space; and work with Ukraine on digital transformation and cooperation on AI to provide best‑in‑class public services.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

The department is reforming the Level 3 qualifications system to ensure all qualifications approved for funding alongside A levels and T Levels are high-quality, have a clear purpose and deliver great outcomes. T Levels have been developed with over 250 leading employers, have significantly longer teaching hours and include a meaningful nine-week industry placement that sets them apart from many current vocational qualifications.

The Health and Science T Levels provide young people with an in-depth overview of the occupational choices within the health and care sectors. They will provide a pipeline of young talent into occupations such as Trainee Nursing Associate (TNA) and Assistant Health Practitioner roles, later progressing to the registered occupations.

In addition to T Levels, the department will also fund small alternative academic qualifications, equivalent to one A level in priority areas such as health and social care, as well as funding large technical qualifications for adults who are not able to take T Levels. In January 2023 the department published its funding approval criteria for alternative academic and technical qualifications approved from 2025, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/qualifications-funding-approval-manual-2025-to-2026/common-funding-approval-criteria.

In October 2022 the department published the final list of qualifications which overlap with waves 1 and 2 T Levels, which will have 16-to-19 funding offers removed in August 2024. This excluded qualifications that may overlap with the Health and Science T Levels, as these were under review by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education. The department will publish the final list of qualifications which overlap with the Health and Science T Levels, and which will have funding removed in 2024 in due course. The department has published an impact assessment for qualifications that will have 16-to-19 study programme funding removed because they overlap with a waves 1 or 2 T Levels, excluding Health and Science, and this will be updated when the final list is published.

The earliest point we will remove funding approval for qualifications that overlap with T Levels will be August 2024, four years after T Levels were first taught. The department has responded to feedback from the sector by delaying the withdrawal of funding by a year, ensuring awarding organisations and providers have longer to prepare. All providers will have the opportunity to deliver T Levels for a minimum of one year before overlapping qualifications are removed.

I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire on 31 March 2022 to Question 146649.

The hon. Member makes a really important point that is at the heart of our £100 million innovation accelerator pilot programme. We have chosen the locations—Glasgow, Manchester and the west midlands—for the initial tranche, because we want to invest in places where there is strong world-class research and development and innovation cheek by jowl with lamentable deprivation. I very much hope that over the next few years we can extend it out to areas, including parts of Northern Ireland, where that similar pattern of excellence alongside deprivation is sadly still present.

Research consortia foster research collaboration between diverse partners within countries and across international boundaries. Evidence shows that collaboration leads to better performance.

Collaboration and excellence reinforce each other:

• Within a single organisation or university, collaboration achieves 27% higher scholarly impact than no collaboration, however across organisations or in consortia within a country, collaborations achieve 45% higher impact, and international collaborations double the impact of scholarly output (99% higher), compared to no collaboration.
• The UK has received 21 of the 55 Nobel Prizes awarded between 2010 and 2020 and all of these (except for one in Literature) were shared with scientists from other nations

International R&D consortia lead to better economic outcomes:

• R&D investments have been found to generate twice as large returns internationally (250%) as they have domestically (121%) (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/roie.12404)
• A 1% increase in foreign R&D investment raises total factor productivity by twice as much as domestic R&D investment (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014292109000348)

Existing international funding vehicles such as the Newton and Global Challenges Research Fund build international consortia (bilateral consortia with Newton and multilateral through the Global Challenges Research Fund) to progress research on shared challenges.

The UK provides funding to UNAIDS to support its leadership role in the HIV response. Through our programme partnership agreement, the UK assesses the work of UNAIDS against agreed indicators including furthering innovation in the response. The new Global AIDS strategy 2021-2016 clearly articulates the importance of leveraging the potential of data, science, research and innovation to guide the HIV response.

The Church of England’s Mission and Public Affairs Division has partnered with the Universities of Durham and York to address gaps in understanding between science and religion. Equipping Christian Leaders in an Age of Science has been running for four years and has just been awarded £3.4m by the Templeton Religion Trust for its next phases. The team has organised 11 conferences enabling bishops and senior church leaders to engage with the latest developments in topics ranging from neuroscience to cosmology.

The Church of England is also a partner in the Centre for Doctoral Training in AI Ethics at the University of Bath, along with numerous other industry partners, gaining understanding which will be shared within the Church. The Bishop of Oxford is a member of the House of Lords Select Committee on AI and is a board member of the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation. The Church also made a submission to the recently-published consultation by the Committee for Standards in Public Life on the impact of AI on public life.

All this work on new technologies will feed into the Equipping Christian Leaders in an Age of Science project and the wider engagement of the Church on public affairs. In March 2020 three new pieces of research will begin. These are designed to deepen understanding of science and to resource and expand the reach of Church engagement. This research will take place at Durham University, York University and within the Mission and Public Affairs Division of the Archbishops' Council.

This is publicly available information.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publish data on employment by occupation, which is available by gender: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/employmentbyoccupationemp04

The Higher Education Statistics Authority (HESA) publish data on academic research staff in UK universities, broken down by seniority, sex and ethnicity through the Higher Education Staff Data, Detailed Tables 13 and 15: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/staff

This is publicly available information.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publish data on employment by occupation, which is available by gender: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/employmentbyoccupationemp04

The Higher Education Statistics Authority (HESA) publish data on academic research staff in UK universities, broken down by seniority, sex and ethnicity through the Higher Education Staff Data, Detailed Tables 13 and 15: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/staff

The UK has been clear that it is committed to establishing a far-reaching science and innovation accord with the EU. Two rounds of initial discussions have taken place with the Article 50 Task Force on science and innovation, the first on 22 May and the second on 7 June. Both sets of discussions were constructive, demonstrating a strong case for continued collaboration in this area.

This science and innovation accord will be underpinned by the UK’s wider agreements with the EU, including those on data sharing and protection. As we set out in our July 2018 White Paper, we are looking for an agreement with the EU that provides for the continued exchange of personal data between the UK and the EU with strong privacy protections for citizens.

We continue to engage very closely with businesses across sectors and across the whole of the UK. We have already had a number of engagements in Northern Ireland, and there will be many more to come.