Research Outcome Collections System

UKRI needs to know about the impact of the research and innovation it supports, including through competitive awards. Data on the outputs, outcomes, and impacts of our funding is critical for UKRI for three key uses: • To communicate the value and impact of UKRI and our investments and show that we are a responsible investor; • To understand "what does and doesn't work" in Research and innovation strategy and delivery of funding; and, • To monitor, in flight, the progress and performance of our funding and of UKRI as an organisation. This aids our assurance processes. UKRI is required to account for its activities to Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) including: • Tracking the performance of funding programmes against their business cases (which often include monitoring research outputs); • Capturing business-specific outputs, such as the establishment of new spinouts; • Numbers of jobs created; and, • Numbers of research outputs (such as publications, patents etc). UKRI currently captures this information through two routes i) for academic awards UKRI uses the Researchfish system provided by Elsevier ii) for Innovate UK funding, UKRI has a bespoke impact tracking survey that focuses on collecting data relevant to innovation awards. UKRI has been subscribing to the Researchfish1 system for over ten years and while contracts have been renewed at regular intervals through Government procurement frameworks to secure good value for money, UKRI wishes to undertake an open procurement to ensure that we are taking full advantage of any new developments in the area. In 2025 UKRI will mandate impact reporting from 27,000 awards (total value £20 billion, held by 17,000 researchers), optional reports will be requested from a further 25,000 awards (total value £7billion, held by 11,000 researchers). This request is steadily growing in line with the growth in UKRI funding. UKRI publishes almost all the information it collects via UKRI Gateway to Research. Following the Government commissioned independent review of research bureaucracy, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) recommended in the Government response to the review that UKRI should "consider all alternative options" for any future research outcomes collection system. This reporting process is considered a significant part of the burden on those required to report and an area with potential for improvement. UKRI is working with DSIT and other funders to continue to identify ways to reduce research bureaucracy, not only in impact reporting, but also in other areas of funding assurance. An existing contract with Elsevier is in place, which will expire in April 2025. UKRI is to engage the market and prepare to run an open tender exercise for a future solution. Suppliers will be encouraged to propose new and innovative approaches to data collection, with the aim that the first data collection using the new approach can be conducted from early 2026.

Additional information: Please refer to the Research Outcome Collections System EOI document for further details on the requirement.