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Universities will be asked how they are using quality-related (QR) research funding to promote equality and diversity to help ensure ¡°no one is left behind in the pursuit of knowledge and impact¡±.

Research England awards ?2 billion in grants annually on the basis of excellence via the Research Excellence Framework (REF). Outlining its plans to ensure this funding also supports diversity, its newly published?explains that it will undertake a pilot exercise in 2025-26 to monitor how research funding is spent, including how REF block grants are used to further EDI objectives and outcomes.

The sector-wide exercise will explore how REF-related funding is used by universities, including ¡°wider implications broadly relating to EDI practices¡±, explains the action plan published on 4 June.

The plan also commits to investigating how other funding streams distributed by Research England support EDI. These streams will include the ?30 million awarded annually to English institutions to improve research culture, the ?20 million Research England Development Fund to support industry-academia collaborations and the ?260 million-a-year Higher Education Innovation Funding programme.

The scrutiny will be part of Research England¡¯s ongoing transparency programme, which seeks to better understand how unhypothecated QR block grants awarded to universities are spent.

But moves to monitor the EDI impact of QR funding could prompt criticism from some quarters because this funding is meant to reward research excellence, as well as impact, rather than improvements in measures related to diversity or inclusion.?However, such indicators may form part of metrics being developed to assess .

In addition, institutions do not routinely track EDI outcomes related to this spending, while some research experts have questioned whether it is possible to track the outcomes of REF-related spending at all given the varied and often unseen ways?that it is spent across institutions.

To do so would require new, expensive audit and bureaucracy measures, cutting into the amount of money available for research, they argue.

Introducing the action plan, Arun Verma and Lexi Webster, chair and deputy chair of Research England¡¯s expert advisory group, said it ¡°marks the start of an important and potentially joyful journey for the higher education, research and innovation sector¡±.

The plan ¡°signals a strengthened commitment from the higher education, research and innovation sector to be world-leading by enabling equitable opportunities, celebrating diversity of background, mind and thought, and cultivating cultures of inclusion to ensure no one is left behind in the pursuit of knowledge and impact,¡± they added.

Welcoming the plan, Jessica Corner, executive Chair of Research England, said the organisation was ¡°committed to fostering a more inclusive and representative research environment¡±.

¡°Through sector-wide leadership, we aim to inspire new approaches, build collaborative networks, and empower individuals across the system to succeed. Our commitment to inclusivity remains steadfast, and we will continue to integrate these principles across our policy and funding activities,¡± said Corner.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com