International research funding systems: A comparative analysis, April 2025

PwC was commissioned by The Russell Group of Universities to undertake a comparative review of government R&D funding systems across successful international counterparts, identifying relative strengths and weaknesses, in order to understand what the UK can learn from differently designed funding systems.

Our work commenced with a high-level desktop comparison of ten comparator countries, from which a shortlist of four countries was selected for deep dive analysis through desktop review and stakeholder engagement. The four shortlisted countries are Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and South Korea. The analysis of these countries seeks to comment on the relative strengths of each system and the extent to which areas of system differentiation correlates to R&D output, research excellence and innovation.

Our report highlights how important it is to balance competing objectives when designing a government R&D funding system. On the one hand it is imperative to protect academic freedom and the independence of researchers, universities and other organisations, on the other hand the system should also allow for a degree of targeted funding towards government priority areas. Similarly, each country needs to decide to what extent the funding system is designed to build broad-based capacity as opposed to driving and incentivising research excellence. Each country needs to find their own balance and choose how to prioritise these objectives within their own unique context.