19 Risk commentary and recommendations: Most public research and charitable funding doesn’t cover the full cost of undertaking research, and while the government has signalled an intention to fund research on a more sustainable basis, this may result in funding a lower volume of research overall. For example, the government has stated in the English post-16 education and skills white paper that it wants to incentivise “a more strategic distribution of research activity across the sector”, ensuring that all parts of the country have “the right volume and mix” of research capabilities through greater collaboration between institutions and “specialisation”, i.e. moving away from a business model that encourages all academics to undertake research and all universities to support research across a range of disciplines. The next REF has been framed to support this aim. Greater concentration of research funding will impact institutions disproportionately, and points to research being an area of increasing risk. Audit committee focus on research risks tends to be lighter than on other areas of university activity, and is often limited to consideration of transparent approach to costing (TRAC) returns and, increasingly, assurance on securing an effective trusted research framework. We recommend that committees should: • Familiarise themselves with the scale and scope of the research and innovation endeavour at their institution, and the fundamentals of the REF exercise; • Ensure that research and innovation risks are reflected in the strategic risk register, or if not, that the rationale for this is clear; • Satisfy themselves where and how second and third line assurance is obtained on the effectiveness of controls around research funding, research management, compliance, and participation in the REF; and • Test whether risks related to research income, particularly forecast income from RFE2029 and cross-subsidy from teaching and other income streams, are adequately reflected in strategic and operational plans.
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