UK to support Chinese R&D collaborations via ‘targeted funds’

Sector leader says UK will “have to walk away” from certain areas of research collaboration

The UK is likely to support future research collaborations with China through “targeted funds”, according to a senior official at the national funding agency UK Research and Innovation.

While the UK government has made much of its ambition to be a ‘science superpower’, its approach to funding international R&D collaborations is currently unclear. In February, the government said it is moving to a “new model of international science collaboration”, after scrapping three key funding schemes, all of which supported collaborative projects with China.