The UKRI Board is our primary governing body. It has general oversight of UKRI’s activities and is responsible for achieving UKRI’s strategic objective and vision.
The board is made up of UKRI’s Chair, Chief Executive and Chief Finance Officer, as well as between 9 and 12 independent members drawn from higher education, industry and commerce, policy, and charities and other non-governmental organisations.
Board members are appointed by the Secretary of State for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy. Members initially serve for three to five years. The board is required to give updates and advice to the Secretary of State, including an annual report and strategic priorities.
The board is supported by the Audit, Risk, Assurance and Performance Committee, the Nominations and Remuneration Committee and a Board Investment Committee that provides independent scrutiny of major business cases that exceed UKRI’s delegations.
Board members
Current members of the board include:
- Sir Andrew Mackenzie – Chair of UKRI
- Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser – Chief Executive, UKRI
- Siobhan Peters – Chief Finance Officer, UKRI
- Professor Julia Black – Pro Director for Research at the London School of Economics and senior independent UKRI Board member
- Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz – Chair of Cancer Research UK
- Sir Ian Boyd – Professor at the University of St Andrews
- Lord John Browne – Executive Chairman of L1 Energy
- Fiona Driscoll – Chair, UKRI Audit Committee and Chair of Nuffield Health Audit Committee
- Professor Anthony Finkelstein – President of City, University of London
- Priya Guha – Venture Partner at Merian Ventures and BIC Chair
- Sir Harpal Kumar – President of GRAIL Europe
- Nigel Toon – Co-founder, Chairman and CEO at Graphcore
- Ruwan Weerasekera – Non-executive Director on the Board of UK Research and Innovation and Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee
- Lord David Willetts – Executive Chair of the Resolution Foundation
- Professor Dame Sally Davies – Master of Trinity College Cambridge (as a former civil servant, Dame Sally is not a formally appointed a member of the board, but joins meetings in a personal capacity as an observer)
- Dr John Fingleton – Chief Executive Officer, Fingleton
- Jo Shanmugalingam – Director General, Industrial Strategy, Science and Innovation at Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) (Jo attends the Board as a representative of the Secretary of State and as such is entitled to take part in any deliberations, but not in decisions).
Board meeting minutes
UKRI board meetings are held up to eight times a year and we publish minutes to ensure transparency and accountability:
- 17 March 2021 meeting minutes (PDF, 140KB)
- 19-20 January 2021 meeting minutes (PDF, 143KB)
- 11 November 2020 meeting minutes (PDF, 129KB)
- 16 September 2020 meeting minutes (PDF, 118KB)
- 15 July 2020 meeting minutes (PDF, 119KB)
- 13 May 2020 meeting minutes (PDF, 154KB)
- 18 March 2020 meeting minutes (PDF, 165KB)
- 15 and 16 January 2020 meeting minutes (PDF, 192KB)
- 13 November 2019 meeting minutes (PDF, 190KB)
- 11 September 2019 meeting minutes (PDF, 180KB)
- 29 July 2019 meeting minutes (PDF, 60KB)
- 2 July 2019 meeting minutes (PDF, 80KB)
- 29 May 2019 meeting minutes (PDF, 80KB)
- 27 March 2019 meeting minutes (PDF, 80KB)
- 26 February 2019 meeting minutes (PDF, 80KB)
- 22 January 2019 meeting minutes (PDF, 440KB)
- 21 November 2018 meeting minutes (PDF, 240KB)
- 16 October 2018 meeting minutes (PDF, 285KB)
- 19 September 2018 meeting minutes (PDF, 315KB)
- 3 July 2018 meeting minutes (PDF, 340KB)
- 15 May 2018 meeting minutes (PDF, 325KB).