These changes need legislation to implement, due to the Research Councils’ Royal Charters. This body would also be responsible for promoting interactions with other Government innovation bodies such as HEFCE (which the Review asserts the importance of keeping independent), and InnovateUK (which the Spending Review has placed under the Research UK umbrella).

The idea would not to be to combine the Research Councils, but to ensure they can act as relatively autonomous bodies within a common framework, ‘like different faculties within a university’ as the Review puts it. This new body would have a single CEO, responsible to Parliament, and would be responsible for overall combined strategic research direction, cross-Council research programmes (funded through a dedicated fund), providing data management and access and to administer shared admin support across the Research Councils. The most major change the Review serves up is a recommendation to strengthen the existing RCUK cross-council body into a formal umbrella organisation known as Research UK.

And of course, the Energy Strategy Fellowship team submitted evidence to the Review based on the findings of our Prospectus. The recommendations of this review were pledged to be implemented by George Osborne as part of the Spending Review, so it has assumed a position of real importance for those of us interested in where UK research bodies are heading in the future. Slipping out on the 19 th November, a few short days before the Spending Review, was the Review of the UK Research Councils, led by former Royal Society president Sir Paul Nurse.

Aidan Rhodes shares a few words on the Nurse Review.

What is life paul nurse review