What is the current funding arrangement for the Research Portion of the Block Grant?

The Research Portion (R-portion) of the Block Grant is disbursed to the universities as infrastructure funding to enable universities to provide both the staffing and facilities (e.g. accommodation and equipment) necessary to carry out research, and to fund a certain level of research. It comprises two parts. One part is informed by the research performance of universities as identified in the Research Assessment Exercise which assesses the research activity of different units of assessment within universities through expert review by subject panels. Another part is informed by the two-year average of universities' success in obtaining designated Research Grants Council (RGC) grants. At present, they respectively attract a weighting of 75%-85% and 15%-25% in arriving at the R-portion funding allocation.