The Chartered ABS report on the funding of business and management research in the UK

The report uses the latest data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and this year’s edition has been expanded to include a comparison with research funding 10 years ago, enabling UK business schools to benchmark their funding levels over a longer period. This year’s report also contains a more detailed breakdown of funding from the UK research councils.

The 1% growth in research funding for Business & Management compared to 2017/18 is accounted for by increases from the UK research councils (+8%) and EU government bodies (+12%), which helped to offset falls in funding from UK-based charities (-36%) and non-EU ‘other’ sources (-22%).

The UK business school sector is increasingly reliant on non-UK sources for research income and the EU’s share of research funding for Business & Management is now at an all-time high of 27%, up from a 13% share in 2008/09. Income from non-EU sources has also steadily risen over the last 10 years and accounted for 7% of the total in 2018/19. Over the last 10 years the share of research income received from UK sources has fallen from 86% to 66%. Research funding for Business & Management from the UK government has declined in real-terms, with UK business schools receiving 33% less in 2018/19 than 10 years ago. In contrast, across all academic fields funding from the UK government grew in real-terms by 9% over the same period.