Increase funding for educational research for UK’s future prosperity, say British Academy and Royal Society

Investment in educational research is significantly lagging compared to other large scale public sectors, warns a report by the British Academy and Royal Society. 

In 2021 to 2022, educational research at UK universities only amounted to 0.05%  of public spending, considerably lower than the approximately 1.7% of public spending into health research. 

The Academies are calling on the UK government to raise levels of investment in educational research in proportion with other sectors, create a more coordinated, forward-thinking system, and support research in underdeveloped and emerging areas.

The policy briefing – the culmination of longstanding collaboration between the British Academy and the Royal Society – makes several recommendations, including:

• Government should increase funding for educational research, bringing it into line with other important public service research funding.
• Research funders should include more long-term research funding opportunities and support for underrepresented and emerging research themes to provide deeper insight into important questions and into the effectiveness of policy changes.
• Government should pilot a model of advocacy and coordination to strengthen the educational research infrastructure. This would offer strategic advice to government and help to translate evidence into practice.

The Academies are also publishing a short summary of an in-depth report, ‘The Landscape of Educational Research in the UK’ to provide an expansive analysis of the state of play in educational research. 

Professor Simon Swain FBA, Vice-President of Research and Higher Education Policy at the British Academy, said: “A thriving and successful education ecosystem requires the strong foundations of healthy and well-funded research into education itself. This long-standing collaboration between the British Academy and Royal Society emphasises how important it is for different disciplines to work together in a sustained way to connect our knowledge. This project is more evidence of the strategic value of social sciences, humanities and arts subjects in the research and development landscape and a significant contribution to the overwhelming case for stable, long-term funding across the board to make the UK a science superpower.”

Professor Ulrike Tillmann, mathematician and Chair of the Royal Society’s Education Committee, said: "We all know the enormous value of education in allowing people to be better citizens and lead more fulfilling lives. We also know that a well-educated and highly skilled workforce is more productive. Indeed, all economic sectors rely on a solid foundation of good quality education to thrive, and if the UK is to become a science superpower, we need to understand better the long-term effects of education. We can no longer rely solely on short-term evaluation and learning gains – we need forward-thinking research that looks at the enduring impact of education on an individual’s lifelong growth to build a healthier education system that benefits us all.”