Here not so much for what he has done in the role – which has been solid and steady, if unremarkable and perhaps a tiny bit dull – but for the potential encapsulated within UKRI. For the first time, a single body supports the entirety of research in England – controlling the REF (and linked QR funding), third stream activity, project grants, and PhD studentships. The Chinese walls between the two arms of dual support appear to be holding, and the advent of a number of cross-disciplinary funding schemes suggest that government, via Walport, is getting to grips with the potential of a fully operational mega-agency.
One big sheet of paper in his in-tray concerns open access to research. UKRI has signed up to the oddly-named “plan S”, committing the UK’s research funder to a radical and fast-paced plan that delights advocates as much as it will annoy publishers (and some academics). More than anything, this requires skill and surefootedness to negotiate. OA is clearly the future but, as with much in life, the transition is everything.
It’s not all plain sailing. Governments in Cardiff and Edinburgh are concerned that the Englishness will suffuse the activity of the UK-wide individual councils, the place of the former Innovation UK still feels uncertain, and the general disinterest that initially greeted the launch of the Industrial Strategy