Freedom of information (FOI) releases from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)
This is a disclosure log of UK Research and Innovation's responses to freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) requests that might be of wider public interest.
If you can't find the information you're looking for, you can make a new FOI request.
1,058 disclosures
-
Request Received: 8 July 2022
I am writing to make an open government request for all the information to which I am entitled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Please send me the following:
1) How many UKRI-funded PhD students completed their PhD during the past five years?
2) How many PhD students left their PhD prematurely during the past five years?
Could you please give this information broken down by year (academic/calendar/financial year depending on how data is organised). Could you, also, please give a breakdown by research council and also the gender of students. So, for example, I'd be able to say how many male students funded by MRC completed/dropped out of PhD last year.
I would like the above information to be provided to me in electronic format.
If this request is too wide or unclear, I would be grateful if you could contact me as I understand that under Section 16 of the Act, you are required to advise and assist requesters. If any of this information is already in the public domain, please can you direct me to it, with page references and URLs if necessary.
If the release of any of this information is prohibited on the grounds of breach of confidence, I ask that you supply me with copies of the confidentiality agreement and remind you that information should not be treated as confidential if such an agreement has not been signed.
Published: 11 November 2022
-
Request Received: 8 July 2022
Dear Information team,
Thank you very much for your response. The information you sent me did not go beyond what is already published on your web-interface. In fact it is less, because it does not include, for example the value of panel rejected grants.
From your justification, it is not clear to me why you feel unable to send me the requested information.
I understand that your main concern is confidentiality and your that the release of the information may "prejudice UKRI's capacity to successfully attract applicants to participate in any future competition processes."
The second reason is particularly puzzling to me. I can follow the reasoning that sharing scoring information could, potentially, identify candidates. However, the bulk of the information I requested was grant number, grant value and whether or not accepted. This information can in no way be used to identify unsuccessful candidates. So there are no confidentiality issue.
In order to lay to rest any remaining concerns about confidentiality, I re-formulate my FOI and ask for summary data only. Please find below my re-vised FOI request:
Please send me the success rates on a per value and per grant number basis for all panels since January 2017.
This information is of essential interest to the public because it will provide information whether or not there is a value bias in the application approvals, and will thus provide information about the effectiveness of the EPSRC peer review process.
Please calculate this data as follows:
For each panel of EPSRC, split up the data into three classes of grants according to the amount asked:
£0-150000 , £150001-£400000, £400001 - unlimited
For each of the three classes and each panel, please report:
1-Number of grants that did not go to panel (but would have done so had they been of sufficient quality).
2-Number of grants that were rejected by panel
3-Number of grants accepted by panel.
4-Combined Value of grants that did not go to panel (but would have done so had they been of sufficient quality).
5-Combined of grants that were rejected by panel
6-Combined of grants accepted by panel.
Please send this to me as an Excel file where the first column should be the name of the panel. The remaining 6x3 = 18 cols should contain the information requested above for the relevant panel.
Published: 11 November 2022
-
Request Received: 8 July 2022
For 2021, re Animal Use under ASPA 1986
I note that during the year you were responsible for 169,989 procedures https://www.ukri.org/about-us/mrc/ourpolicies-and-standards/research/research-involving-animals/facts-and-figures/
1) Please can you tell me the number and species of animals, that were killed without being used for regulated procedures?
i.e. Additional statistics on breeding and genotyping of animals for scientific procedures last published in 2017 re Article 54 of Directive 2010/63/EU. If this data would exceed the FOIA time/cost limit please can I just have the figures for any specially protected species.
2) Were any animals rehomed in 2021? If so, please may I have their number and species. Again if this data would exceed the FOIA time/cost limit please can I just have the figures for any specially protected species.
3) Can you please tell me who are the establishments owned by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and if they each have a separate licence.
Published: 11 November 2022
-
Request Received: 7 June 2022
I am interested in understanding how the success rate of standard grant proposals are related to the size of the application. In particular, I would like to know, for the years since 2010 (or whatever is available) for all applications to the standard (responsive) grant scheme where the application was allocated to the EPSRC ICT panel (even if it was not considered at the panel):
Application value, average total reviewer score, funded (yes/no),ranked at panel rank (yes/no), submission date
Please count multi-institution proposals as 1, i.e. if a proposal has investigators in University of A and University of B, then this should count as a single proposal, not as 2 proposals.
Please let me know if it is possible to derive this information from the published data on the EPSRC website. If not, I would be very grateful if you could let me have this information.
I would like to have the requested information in electronic form (either as a spreadsheet or csv file).
Published: 11 November 2022
-
Request Received: 19 July 2022
I understand that the recent REF2021 results are an 'aggregated' view of research quality in UK HEIs, where results are published at whole submission level.
However, I would like to make a Freedom of Information Request to obtain the 'individual' score for my REF2021 Impact Case Study. I am aware form the whole submission level that it was scored either a 3 or 4*, but knowing the exact score is important for leveraging my academic consulting with business practitioners and policy makers.
The details of the Impact Case Study are:
Institution: Bournemouth University
Unit of Assessment: 34, Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management
Impact Case Study Title: Managing media firms: informing regulation, strategy practices and performance
I understand from Gov.UK that, as a publicly funded body, my Freedom of Information Request does not present a threat to crime investigation, national security or the assessment or collection of tax. As such, the information requested will be available within 1 month at most.
Published: 11 November 2022
-
Request Received: 21 July 2022
Under the Freedom of Information Act, please can you provide the following information:
How many staff involved in your Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contracts have taken leave for stress-related illnesses since January 2021?
Published: 11 November 2022
-
Request Received: 25 May 2022
1. How many of your staff have been accused of a) sexual misconduct, or b) other professional misconduct in the workplace since 1st January 2021?
2. How many of your staff have been disciplined for a) sexual misconduct, or b) other professional misconduct in the workplace since 1st January 2021?
Published: 11 November 2022
-
Request received: 18 October 2022
I would be most grateful if you would provide me, under the Freedom of Information Act, details in respect to the contract below. GB-Swindon: UKRI-2515 Purchase of High-purity Germanium Sensors: https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/38dc55f3-5415-46f1-94d7-36eaba824e33 The details we require are:
• What are the contractual performance KPI's for this contract?
• Suppliers who applied for inclusion on each framework/contract and were successful & not successful at the PQQ & ITT stages
• Actual spend on this contract/framework (and any sub lots), from the start of the contract to the current date
• Start date & duration of framework/contract?
• Could you please provide a copy of the service/product specification given to all bidders for when this contract was last advertised?
• Is there an extension clause in the framework(s)/contract(s) and, if so, the duration of the extension?
• Has a decision been made yet on whether the framework(s)/contract(s) are being either extended or renewed?
• Who is the senior officer (outside of procurement) responsible for this contract?
Published: 9 November 2022
-
Request Received: 1 October 2022
Dear Medical Research Council,
According to a publication by Oshugi et al 2020 (available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589909019300309), in 1991, the Medical Research Council and Chugai Pharmaceuticals co-developed the antibody that was later named tocilizumab (RoActemra).
The paper claims that the antibody was "humanized by using CDR-grafting technology in collaboration with the MRC (Medical Research Council)" and that the "MRC (Medical Research Council) Collaborative Center in the United Kingdom held the intellectual property rights for antibody humanization".
Could you please provide all documentation you hold on the collaboration between Chugai Pharmaceuticals and the MRC? Also, please provide a list of all Intellectual Property held by the MRC which pertains to "antibody humanization"?
Published: 7 November 2022
-
Request Received: 22 July 2022
Clarification Received: 9 August 2022
You have previously supplied data on committee membership and participation from the AHRC, ESRC, EPSRC and NERC each of which has a 'Peer Review College', and from the BBSRC whose equivalent is a 'Pool of Experts'. Here, I refer to them generically as 'expertise pools'. You have also supplied data from the MRC, although I could not find any reference to an associated equivalent expertise pool. It is possible that they may recruit into their committees directly with an annual call. It is also possible that they hold information about potential committee members based on applications or expressions of interest - it would be useful if you could please clarify. With this in mind, I would be grateful if UKRI could please supply the following data about these expertise pools, including any informal data held that are routinely used to populate the committees mentioned in FOI2020/00242 and FOI2021/00376: For the Councils AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, MRC & NERC:
1. The number of individuals in any 'expertise pools' from which committee members are drawn, broken down by research council, ethnicity and year. This data to be presented in both formats used in previous FOI requests, namely aggregated ethnicity data by year (as per FOI2020/00242) and broader ethnicity categories, aggregated by year (as per FOI2021/00376).
2. If a council does not draw membership from an 'expertise pool', details of how members are recruited into their panels and any relevant ethnicity data held on their recruitment, broken down by research council, ethnicity and year.
3. For those councils who draw committee membership from 'expertise pools', the number of invitations issued to reach the panel membership numbers from the previous requests, broken down by research council, ethnicity and year. Presented in the same formats as Q1.
If it's possible to disaggregate data by year and ethnicity simultaneously, that would provide very useful information.
Published: 2 November 2022