Call for additional £2bn in funding

The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta) and a group of research-based universities led by Sir Roy Anderson, rector of Imperial College London are calling for as much as £2bn in additional funding in the budget, reports the Financial Times.

It is envisioned that the money would be spent through two streams, the first would be allocated to the seven research councils to support research and postgraduate training. The second 'would be used to help finance small high-tech companies and start ups' which are suffering from a long-term shortage of early-stage venture capital funding.

David Delpy, chief executive of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council is quoted as saying, "The big risk now is that, with the US planning to invest $18bn in research grants and $3.5bn in scientific infrastructure, we could lose what we have built up over the past decade."

Read the Financial Times article in full.