Cutting investment in research and development (R&D) to help plug the UK Government’s fiscal black hole would be counterproductive and damage future waves of innovation, says Vice Chancellor of Swansea University Paul Boyle.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will announce in his autumn statement tomorrow a series of tax cuts, fiscal drag tax band threshold freezes - with expectation that he will reduce the rate at which people pay the 45p top rate from £150,000 to £125,000 - and in real terms cuts to public expenditure, to fill a £55bn deficit.
However, Prof Boyle has urged the chancellor not to cut funding - via the various research councils and innovation bodies like Innovate UK - on early stage R&D. He said that while public sector investment in R&D in the UK was lower than in many major economies, UK researchers still out performed competitors - but without an improved funding environment this couldn’t be sustained.
