This timeline lays out some of the key documents, statements and announcements that have been made since the charity research support funds were established.

July 2010

• The charity and university sectors publish a joint statement outlining the importance of the Charity Research Support Fund (CRSF) in sustaining charity-funded research in universities in England.

June 2010

• AMRC launches our Challenge for government which includes a call for government to enable charitable research funds to be spent only on research.

March 2010

• Scottish Funding Council confirms allocation of £21.5 million to charity research support funding in Scotland calculated from the inclusion of charity-funded researchers in the calculation of the main volume element of REG.
• Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) confirms allocation of £3.1 million specifically for charities (allocated within QR in proportion to research income from UK charities) plus charity income is a minor volume measure (0.25) within the QR funding formula.

1 February 2010

• HEFCE provisional grant allocations letter published announcing how it intends to spend its budget for 2010-11. £198 million is allocated to the Charity Research Support Fund - maintaining it in real terms to the amount (£194 million) allocated in 2009-10. 

22 December 2009

• Lord Mandelson sends a letter to HEFCE confirming their budgets for 2010-11 and setting out some objectives for how HEFCE should spend them.

9 December 2009

• Pre-budget report announces a £600 million reduction in higher education and science and research budgets by 2010-13

June 2009

• Breast Cancer Campaign report Full Economic Costing: the effECts on charity-funded research. The key findings of a survey on the views and experiences of full Economic Costing for researchers within universities in the UK.

13 May 2009

• HEFCE statement in response to John Denham's letter.

Particularly, this states that the board finds it necessary to review the funding allocations it has made for the 2009-10 academic year. It goes on to say that the research allocations made will be unaffected by this review. The final allocations to institutions for 2009-10 will be agreed at the Board meeting on 2 July.

HEFCE also looks ahead to funding decisions for 2010-11 and states that efficiency savings will be spread across the whole range of recurrent funding. Provisional agreement has been reached that £16 million of efficiency savings will be sought from the quality-related (QR) element of research funding in 2010-11. As the Charity Research Support Fund comes from this pot of funding, it could potentially be affected by these efficiency savings.

6 May 2009

• John Denham MP, Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, wrote to HEFCE setting out how the Budget affects Higher Education and how he wishes Hefce to respond. 

The letter states that the cashable efficiency savings that DIUS expects HEFCE to make should be 'spread across your recurrent resources for teaching and your recurrent resources for research, which are outside the Science and Research budget ring fence.'

And restates that DIUS "remain committed to the dual support system for research".

April 2009

• Budget 2009
  • Comment from Simon Denegri, Chief Executive of AMRC.

• RCUK/UUK Review of the Impact of Full Economic Costing on the UK Higher Education Sector. Chapter 7 looks at charities in detail and makes recommendations to promote greater transparency over the charity support funding mechanisms and individual charities’ funding policies.

Information for AMRC members here: http://www.amrc.org.uk/2/consultations--surveys_

March 2009

• Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) announcement of the funding arrangements for universities and colleges in 2009-10 - £193,600,000 for the Charity Research Support Fund.

• Scottish Funding Council announcement of £17.4 million from the Research Excellence Grant (REG) plus an extra 5% of fEC to be recouped from the inclusion of charity-funded researchers in the calculation of the main volume element of REG.

October 2008

• Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) announcement of the funding arrangements for universities and colleges in 2008/09

March 2008

• Budget 2008

• Scottish Funding Council announcement of £14.7 million charity income funding stream distributed as part of the main quality research grant (MQRG) for 2008-09 plus extra distributed on basis of charity research included within further quality measures in the MQRG.

January 2008

• AMRC response to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) provisional announcement on the funding arrangements for universities and colleges in 2008/09 that £185 million will go to support charity-funded research, representing an increase of £5 million over 2007/08. 

28 June 2007

• Response from Bill Rammell, Minister of State for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education acknowledging the sectors concerns over the CRSF.

June 2007

• Letter from AMRC members to Bill Rammell, Minister of State for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education, stressing the need for the CRSF to grow in line with growth in charity research funding.

April 2007

• Scottish Funding Council announcement of £14 million charity income funding stream distributed as part of the MQRG for 2007-08 plus extra distributed on basis of charity research included within further quality measures in the MQRG.

March 2007

• Budget 2007 (paragraph 3.90) announces early 2007 comprehensive sprending review (CSR) settlements for the Department of Trade and Industry’s ring-fenced science budget and the Department for Education and Skills which together deliver average annual growth of 2.5 per cent in real terms over the CSR period.

AMRC welcome this early settlement but registers concern that the size of the CRSF will not meet our recommendations.

December 2006

• AMRC submission to the government on the comprehensive spending review 2007 making the following recommendations:
  • The government must maintain the dual support system by which research, including health and medical research, is funded within Higher Education Institutions (HEIs);
  • Based on AMRC projections, the government’s commitment to grow CRSF by £90 million per year to a total Fund for England by 2009/10 of £270 million will be insufficient to meet 80% of the full economic costs of eligible charity-funded research.  We have estimated that a doubling of the fund from the £180 million allocated in 2006/07 to £360 million by 2009/10 would allow for anticipated increases in funding from both AMRC and other charities, including major overseas charity funders;
  • AMRC continues to believe that charities should not pay for universities’ indirect costs of research and that any move in this direction would deter many of our members from funding research in the future;
  • The government should ensure a dedicated capital infrastructure stream which underpins research activities and which cannot be assigned to particular projects.

• Letter received from the Welsh Assembly First Minister, Rhodri Morgan, stating that the final budget settlement agreed by the National Assembly for Wales now provides for an additional £3 million per year to support charity-funded research in Wales. 

June 2005

• Letter from HEFCE announcing the creation of the Charity Research Support Fund in England in 2005
  
  “Charities are an integral part of the research landscape in English higher education. They provide significant levels of funding for people, projects and infrastructure - altogether some £575 million in 2003-04. The work supported by these grants is of great benefit to the general public and to the national research base.”

2004

• The Charity Research Support Fund (CRSF) is announced by the government in the Science and Innovation Investment Framework 2004-2014 (paragraph 1.16, 1.41, 3.31-3.37) to support charity research funding in England, and came into existence in 2006-07.