Paying for science

Paying for science: a theory of UKRI grant funding

How to allocate research funding is an important and contested problem. We analyse the methodology used by UK Research and Innovation to set grant budgets and derive an equation for the unrestricted portion. We find the unrestricted fraction can vary widely, and give a strategy for maximising it. This is important, because the viability of research institutions depends on being able to cover the cost of their research.