A large increase in UK research spending being discussed by the Boris Johnson government could be accompanied by a major reshaping of the funding system to create a multi-year framework setting out key scientific missions ¨C an approach seen as bringing potential rewards and risks.

Chris Skidmore, the universities and science minister, wants to create a five-year financial framework programme to fund research with strategic missions ¡°centred¡± within it, similar to the European Union¡¯s system, to promote public appreciation of the benefits of research funding.

Ministers and advisers are in the early stages of discussions on this plan, seeing a potential major increase in research funding ¨C aimed at delivering on the existing commitment to devote 2.4?per cent of gross domestic product to public and private research spending by 2027 ¨C as an opportunity to take a more strategic approach to investment, if the Conservatives win the next general election.

³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ understands that the proposal is for all research and development spending funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to come under such a framework. Whether spending funded by other departments, such as health and defence, could come under the system will be one issue under discussion.

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It is thought that, while any framework running between 2020 and 2025 would in essence be a repackaging of the status quo, there are early discussions about potentially creating a more fundamentally reformed framework system to implement in 2025-30.

Ministers and advisers are considering opening key questions, such as the nature and extent of missions, to public consultation via a Green Paper, THE understands.

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The close and personal interest in science shown by Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson¡¯s most senior adviser, could be a key influence on the plan.

James Wilsdon, professor of research policy at the University of Sheffield, said there was a ¡°growing conviction¡± that Mr Cummings and others in government want to deliver the ¡°massive uplifts¡± required to meet the 2.4?per cent target. But ¡°they don¡¯t seem to want it flowing through the normal systems and allocation pipelines¡±, which raises key questions about how it would be delivered and about ¡°whose priorities¡± would set the strategy, he added.

Stian Westlake, a former adviser to three science ministers, including Mr Skidmore, said that ¡°after Brexit¡±, science funding ¡°is a very high priority for Dom Cummings¡±.

Mr Westlake said ¡°the strongest argument¡± in favour of mission-oriented research was around ¡°public accountability [and] public communication of research¡±. He added that ¡°part of the quid pro quo for that [extra research spending] politically is to really make a strong case to the public for why this is happening¡±.

The Campaign for Science and Engineering that public spending on R&D of ?20?billion would be needed to meet the 2.4?per cent total target, an increase of ?9?billion on baseline levels.

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Mr Westlake said of the plans being formed in government: ¡°It¡¯s possible we might be looking at something even more ambitious than that. I?would guess the range of outcomes would be between a 50?per cent increase and a doubling ¨C a doubling would be eye-popping in many ways.¡±

The EU has decided to follow a ¡°mission-oriented¡± approach in its next seven-year framework programme for research, starting in 2021, with five broad categories of mission agreed: climate change, cancer, oceans, carbon neutrality and food.

Robert-Jan Smits, former director general for research and innovation at the European Commission, said that he ¡°fully understood¡± why the UK government wanted to move towards multi-annual frameworks. ¡°It will offer financial security and reliability to the UK research community, [bringing] together scattered funding streams, and as such enhance visibility [of research] to the British citizen and society as a whole,¡± he said.

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Mr Smits added that the missions chosen must be of a scale and scope appropriate to the national context. He cited Japan and China as countries ¡°that have followed the EU approach and set up multi-annual science and innovation framework programmes¡±.

However, Mr Smits, now president of Eindhoven University of Technology, said that?a national programme ¡°will have impact only if it is opened up to scientists from across the globe¡±.

Professor Wilsdon said that while ¡°everyone¡± in the sector would welcome the stability of multi-year funding, such a system would be ¡°nothing new¡± given that the Labour government had introduced a 10-year framework in 2004, before losing power in 2010.

He cautioned that ¡°what you don¡¯t want is the whole system violently lurching off to this month¡¯s new set of fashionable missions¡±, and that ¡°the more you put into missions, the more you need to put into QR [quality-related funding] to provide the corresponding flexible money¡±.

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But Professor Wilsdon also said the value of a mission-oriented approach ¨C which already exists in some industrial strategy funding, for example ¨C was ¡°in breaking open the disciplinary categories and getting people to think in cross-disciplinary ways¡±.

john.morgan@timeshighereducation.com