Facts and Figures

Stimulate economic growth and wider benefits

• Every £1 invested in cardiovascular or mental health research between 1975 and 1992 earns approximately 39p per annum for the UK over the long term.
• A PricewaterhouseCoopers study suggested that for every £1 invested in research grants in the arts and humanities, the immediate return could be £10.29.
• RCUK encourages and supports researchers to engage with the public by recognising, rewarding and building capacity for public engagement within higher education institutions through the £9.2 million Beacons for Public Engagement initiative, co-funded with the funding councils and the Wellcome Trust.
• Over 200 members of the public and 50 stakeholder groups shared their opinions and revealed their support for both basic research and development of stem cell therapies as part of an RCUK public dialogue. By listening to and involving the public, our decisions and research are more responsive to society and the UK's growth and prosperity is fostered.
• The UK is one of the largest manufacturing economies in the world, and at least 40 per cent of the UK service sector is based on science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
• The Government estimated that space science generated £5.8 billion for the UK economy in 2006/07 and directly supports 16,000 jobs in the UK.

• RCUK funds: 42 per cent of UK domiciled PhD graduates, 35 per cent of EU domiciled PhD graduates, 25 per cent of all PhD graduates in the UK.
• RCUK supports: 19500 PhD students, 10000 research staff on grants, 4000 research staff in Research Institutes.
• Every year RCUK invests over £1 million to fund researchers to engage young people and schools with their research, reaching over 20,000 young people and 1,000 secondary teachers nationwide through a variety of projects.
• 43 per cent of RCUK-funded PhD students go into research roles across all sectors, while 26 per cent move into industry and commerce.

• RCUK works with over 2000 businesses in sectors ranging from engineering to insurance, broadcasting to biotechnology.
• In October 2009, RCUK had partnerships with 18 of the top 20 FTSE companies.
• Since 2006, over £2 billion of funding has been secured directly by RCUK through collaboration with UK business and industry.
• 21 per cent of PhD projects have a formal collaboration with business and industry partners.
• Working collaboratively with Indian partners RCUK have developed multidisciplinary projects and programmes, more than doubling the cash value of the awards and bringing the best minds from academia and industry together to work on problems in energy, agriculture, health and ICT.
• In the last three years, almost £1 billion of inward investment can be directly linked to RCUK efforts to attract international funding into UK research.

Find out more about collaborative funding and read case studies here.