Sowing the seeds

The government’s long-term vision, set out in the Ten Year Science & Innovation Investment Framework, is to make the UK one of the world’s best places for science, research and innovation. Key to this is the successful exploitation of new ideas, incorporating new technologies, design and best practice.

To achieve economic impact from the knowledge generated and the employment of skilled graduates, we need to strengthen links between business and our world-class research base (universities and public sector research institutes) thus enabling knowledge and people transfer and more innovation in products, services and processes.

The EPSRC is one of eight research councils, with its £650m budget coming from the DTI’s Office of Science and Innovation to support cutting-edge research and high-quality post-graduate training. It works closely with the other research councils through Research Councils UK — a partnership between the eight councils — to improve the economic impact arising from its investments in the science base. The council has also published its proposed strategy for knowledge transfer and economic impact.