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<p>Social sciences have a central role to play in contributing to the UK economy and
society, and the challenges set out in the industrial strategy. UKRI through the Economic
and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Research England have a range of mechanisms
to help deliver benefits from social science, including support for commercialisation;</p><p>
</p><ul><li>ESRC funding for impact activities from research projects can be requested
via their “Pathways to Impact”. (<em>Data from ResearchFish shows that 29 spinouts
from ESRC funding have been registered with Companies House between 2010 and 2017.</em>)</li><li>ESRC
also funds Impact Acceleration Accounts (IAAs) at 25 universities to accelerate the
impact of research.</li><li>Research England support via Higher Education Innovation
Funding (HEIF) (currently £210 million per year) for English universities for a range
of knowledge exchange activities. Each institution decides how to deploy this according
to their own strategic priorities, some will support commercialisation of social sciences.</li><li>Research
England has also awarded £5m from the Connecting Capability Fund to London School
of Economics, in partnership with the Universities of Manchester and Sussex, for “ASPECT”
(A Social sciences Platform for Entrepreneurship, Commercialisation and Transformation)
to develop a “globally leading social sciences commercialisation ecosystem.” This
expects to create new companies to improve productivity and solve the most pressing
social challenges.</li></ul><p> </p><p>In addition, a number of calls announced in
Wave 2 of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund have included and embedded social
science, and UKRI will ensure that there are opportunities for social science to contribute
to solving the ambitious challenges set out in the Fund.</p>
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