§ Mr. SheermanTo ask the Secretary of State for Education what has been the total spend of her Department on encouraging research partnerships between industry and universities in each of the last 20 years. [14838]
§ Mr. BoswellPublic funds for English universities are distributed by the Higher Education Funding Council for England in the form of block grant for each university to spend at its discretion. Since its establishment in April 1993, the funding council has allocated some £20 million a year to reward institutions for income earned from work with external sponsors of research, including industry. Comparable figures for earlier years are not readily available.