Rennie calls on Scottish Government to match English commitment to university research

Scottish Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Willie Rennie MSP has today called on the Scottish Government to match commitments to increase the research budget of English universities by more than a third over the next three years.

The UK Government has committed to increases to Research England’s budget by 34.8% over the three years from 2022.  

Scottish universities contribute over £4.5bn to the Scottish economy and support over 70,000 jobs.

However, the proportion of UK research funding spent on Scottish universities has fallen from roughly 15 per cent to 12.5 per cent or the equivalent of £1.8 billion as a result of consistently lower levels of public investment in university research under the SNP.  

Willie Rennie said:

“For generations Scottish universities have been one of the shining lights of the world. Educating the next generation, discovering the cures, the technology, the advances that make our lives better.

“Nowadays, not only do Scottish Universities support vast numbers of jobs and plough money into the Scottish economy, they also contribute so much indirectly through education, enterprise and research.  

“Scotland is falling behind England on research competitiveness. We need to match it if we are not to fall further behind."