(2022-03-31 11:24)
Has the amount of funding for data-related research changed over the last decade?
To analyse funding trends over time, we examined the funding portfolios over the last 10 years of two of the funders we interviewed during the qualitative phase of the project. We examined two government funders, ESRC and Innovate UK, as they had the most projects in Gateway to Research. We chose to focus on only two funders because we did not have time to analyse the portfolios of all the organisations we interviewed, and because some of the funders we spoke to do not publish funding data in a way that facilitates the type of analysis we wanted to conduct. Below we outline the questions we asked and our findings.
Total funding for ESRC and Innovate UK data-related research over ten years
| funder | amount | projects |
|---|---|---|
| ESRC | £103,513,301 | 61 |
| Innovate UK | £141,253,105 | 70 |
| funder | amount | projects |
Using our keyword search in Gateway to Research, and then doing our labelling process, we found ESRC and Innovate UK have funded 131 data-related projects between 2012 and 2022 with £244,766,406 in funding (although 10 projects had a listed funding amount of £0).
To put these amounts in context, ESRC and Innovate UK from 2011 to 2022 together funded 24,530 projects with a total funding amount of £7,391,655,257 (1,213 projects had no funding values).
Breakdown of ESRC and Innovate UK funding by year
We looked at whether the funding amounts and number of projects for data-related research increases within our dataset for ESRC and Innovate UK. For the funding amount, the answers seem inconclusive, although this could be down to missing funding information. However, for the number of data-related projects funded it does seem to increase somewhat over recent years, particularly with Innovate UK funding.
Who were the main recipients of ESRC and Innovate UK funding?
ESRC funding
We can see that ESRC primarily focuses on funding universities. However, there are two exceptions with the Northern Ireland Stats Res Agency and a Behavioural Insights Team.
Again, we see Gateway to Research’s data limitations, with five projects having £0 funding.
| fundee | amount | projects |
|---|---|---|
| University of Essex | £53,751,236 | 4 |
| University of Sheffield | £8,380,902 | 2 |
| University of Sussex | £8,343,000 | 2 |
| University of Edinburgh | £7,925,522 | 4 |
| Swansea University | £7,577,599 | 2 |
| Northern Ireland Stat Res Agency NISRA | £3,979,826 | 2 |
| The Scottish Government | £2,862,000 | 1 |
| University of Glasgow | £2,252,300 | 3 |
| Queen's University of Belfast | £1,311,515 | 2 |
| London School of Economics & Pol Sci | £965,730 | 3 |
| University of Warwick | £771,871 | 4 |
| University of Southampton | £753,857 | 3 |
| University of Birmingham | £726,385 | 4 |
| University of Nottingham | £581,806 | 2 |
| University of Aberdeen | £541,922 | 1 |
| Newcastle University | £484,761 | 2 |
| University of Bristol | £442,192 | 2 |
| Behavioural Insights Team | £318,050 | 1 |
| Goldsmiths College | £308,417 | 1 |
| University of Huddersfield | £280,689 | 1 |
| University of Exeter | £202,436 | 1 |
| University of Cambridge | £173,643 | 1 |
| University of Ulster | £155,303 | 1 |
| University of Manchester | £130,841 | 2 |
| University of Leeds | £100,433 | 2 |
| Durham University | £98,166 | 2 |
| Lancaster University | £92,899 | 1 |
| University of Oxford | £0 | 1 |
| University of East Anglia | £0 | 1 |
| University College London | £0 | 1 |
| Queen Mary, University of London | £0 | 1 |
| Cardiff University | £0 | 1 |
| fundee | amount | projects |
Innovate UK funding
Digital Catapult dominates the funding received from Innovate UK, with an award of £75 million. However, looking at the results this seems to be funding for the centre as a whole and not for individual projects. However, much of Digital Catapult work would be data related.
What’s different from ESRC funded projects is that a lot of the funding goes to businesses and private limited companies. However, Glasgow and Edinburgh universities are also some of the top recipients of funding. Also there’s a wider spread of funding, with grants in the tens of thousands being awarded frequently.
| fundee | amount | projects |
|---|---|---|
| Digital Catapult | £75,821,415 | 3 |
| University of Edinburgh | £22,672,889 | 2 |
| University of Glasgow | £11,608,211 | 1 |
| Energy Systems Catapult Limited | £8,203,000 | 1 |
| Nsar Limited | £6,287,520 | 1 |
| Ytko Limited | £2,033,189 | 1 |
| Newcastle University | £1,433,287 | 1 |
| Melon&co Ltd | £1,418,633 | 1 |
| Sweetbridge Emea Ltd | £1,005,262 | 1 |
| LNRS Data Services Ltd | £853,847 | 1 |
| American Express Services Europe Limited | £730,372 | 1 |
| Nquiringminds Limited | £710,852 | 1 |
| Wax Digital Limited | £589,045 | 1 |
| Building Research Establishment Limited | £532,765 | 1 |
| Etiq Ai Limited | £450,478 | 2 |
| Citizenme Limited | £430,581 | 1 |
| Icebreaker One Limited | £407,605 | 2 |
| Cristal Health Ltd | £349,875 | 1 |
| Mind Foundry Limited | £349,784 | 1 |
| Orbital Witness Limited | £312,748 | 1 |
| Rinicom Limited | £306,147 | 2 |
| Filament PD Ltd | £298,338 | 1 |
| Pauley Group Limited | £297,146 | 1 |
| Siemens PLC | £259,706 | 1 |
| Risk Technology Limited | £250,000 | 1 |
| Vivo Smart Medical Devices Ltd | £239,711 | 1 |
| Meantime Information Technologies Ltd | £233,021 | 1 |
| GlimpSE Protocol Limited | £224,429 | 1 |
| Crossword Cybersecurity Plc | £213,076 | 1 |
| Ranplan Wireless Network Design Ltd | £199,918 | 1 |
| Thingful Limited | £168,079 | 1 |
| Attentiv Ltd | £145,591 | 1 |
| Distribind Limited | £129,902 | 1 |
| RTC North Limited | £103,000 | 1 |
| Zaiku Group Ltd | £100,955 | 2 |
| Ricardo-Aea Limited | £100,000 | 1 |
| HydroSurv Unmanned Survey (UK) Ltd | £99,836 | 1 |
| Vinehealth Digital Limited | £99,808 | 1 |
| Podium Network Ltd | £99,599 | 1 |
| Mobile Content Management Solutions Limited | £93,615 | 1 |
| Koios Master Data Limited | £88,332 | 1 |
| University of the West of Scotland | £82,842 | 1 |
| Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants Limited | £81,530 | 1 |
| Montague Sykes Limited | £80,006 | 1 |
| Verifoxx Ltd. | £79,327 | 1 |
| Makerclub Ltd | £78,675 | 1 |
| Bigbarn C.I.C. | £75,839 | 1 |
| Famiio Limited | £74,208 | 1 |
| Steama Company Limited | £68,509 | 1 |
| University of Aberdeen | £66,704 | 1 |
| Drainage Management Services Limited | £65,500 | 1 |
| Myway Digital Health Limited | £59,958 | 1 |
| Guru Systems Limited | £58,627 | 1 |
| Repositive Limited | £52,292 | 1 |
| Wattbox Limited | £50,000 | 1 |
| London Underground Limited | £50,000 | 1 |
| Birmingham City Council | £50,000 | 1 |
| Swirrl IT Limited | £49,980 | 1 |
| Hsbc Bank Plc | £48,979 | 1 |
| Cc2i Limited | £47,586 | 1 |
| Hr Wallingford Limited | £46,095 | 1 |
| Kultralab Ltd | £20,882 | 1 |
| Pushpull Technology Ltd | £13,999 | 1 |
| fundee | amount | projects |