CaSE Public Attitudes to R&D and the Government's Missions 2024

This research was carried out in September and December 2024 in response to the new Labour Government setting out its legislative agenda and to support CaSE’s policy work exploring the role of Research and Development (R&D) and innovation in delivering the Government’s priorities and missions.

This survey explored public attitudes towards the Government’s five national ‘missions’, the use of R&D as a tool to achieve these missions, and the role of R&D in supporting the Government’s additional focus on improving national security.

We also included a set of repeated questions to track attitudes towards R&D over time.

The results on this page include quantitative research from a nationally representative survey of 3,258 people conducted between 13 – 20 September 2024, and qualitative research from two focus groups held in December 2024. All research was carried out by research agency Public First.

CaSE used insights from this poll to inform our policy development process, including through discussions at stakeholder roundtables, in CaSE’s final policy report on this subject and representation to the Government’s 2025 spending review.

Priority issues for the public

Key takeaways

• The cost of living, quality of the NHS and state of the economy are the top three public concerns
• Compared with previous polls, concern about immigration levels have risen to sit closely behind the economy, while concern about the threat of climate change has dropped
• Although the cost of living is their top concern, the public think the top priority for Government should be improving quality of NHS

While the public are still most concerned with the cost of living and quality of the NHS, concern about levels of immigration and crime have risen. These same concerns are reflected in the issues that the public think the Government should prioritise.

When asked to select the most important issues facing the UK, respondents most commonly selected the cost of living (61% of 3,258 respondents), followed by the quality of the NHS (53%) and the state of the economy (36%). The cost of living has consistently been the greatest concern in all CaSE’s polling since 2022. However, compared to previous polls, concerns about levels of immigration and levels of crime have both risen, with immigration now selected by 34%, close behind the state of the economy, and levels of crime selected by 18%, slightly overtaking the threat of climate change (17%). (Trends in public concerns over time are shown in on chart two in the visualisation below.)

We saw similar attitudes in our focus groups. When asked about the most important issues facing the UK many raised concerns about levels of immigration, both illegal and legal, access to NHS care, levels of crime, the state of the economy and the cost of living.

Reflecting these concerns, when asked what the new UK Government should prioritise (before any mention of the Government’s missions), similar areas come out at the top. The largest proportion said improving the quality of the NHS should be a priority (55%), followed by reducing the cost of energy bills (45%) and reducing the number of “small boats” crossing the Channel (32%).

We see differences in priority issues for the new Government across different age groups. Older respondents were more likely to say the Government should prioritise improving the NHS (66% for each of 55-64s and over 65s) and reducing small boat crossings (45% of 55-64s and 54% of over 65s). There was more support among younger people for the Government prioritising lowering the cost of housing (41% of 18-24s compared to just 13% of over 65s) and improved quality of jobs and schooling.  In fact, for the youngest group, housing was level with the NHS as the top priority.

Attitudes to the Government’s missions and the UK’s economic situation

Key takeaways

• Building an NHS fit for the future is the public’s top priority, followed by kickstarting economic growth
• Less than half think that any of the Government’s missions will be fully or partially achieved in 5 years
• There is a clear partisan divide in opinions on whether the new Government is overstating or accurately representing the state of the UK economy

Mission importance and achievability

The Government’s missions are all high priority to the public. However, most do not think the Government will achieve these missions in the next 5 years.

Before introducing them as the Government’s “missions”, we first tested people’s prioritisation of the goals of the five missions with additional clarifying detail taken directly from the Labour manifesto where we felt the mission statement alone may be unclear (e.g. for “Break down barriers to opportunity” we added “by reforming childcare and education systems”).

The goals of all five missions were perceived as an important or top priority by a majority of respondents (from 71% for the education mission to 95% for the NHS mission). “Build an NHS fit for the future” is seen as the highest priority, with 71% of respondents saying it should be a top priority, and a further 24% that it was important. This was followed by kickstarting economic growth, which 46% said should be a top priority. Very few respondents thought that the goals set out in the missions should not be a priority at all. At most, 7% felt this way, which was for the goal to “make Britain a clean energy superpower”.

While attitudes are fairly consistent across demographics for most of the missions’ goals, the clean energy statement showed the most differences. People with lower levels of formal education, and those intending to vote for the Conservatives or Reform UK were all less likely to think the clean energy goal was important or a top priority. (It should be noted that the sample size for doctorate-holding respondents is too small to draw reliable conclusions.)

We then informed respondents that these areas are the “missions” for the new Government and asked the extent to which they felt the Government would achieve each mission within the next five years (i.e. the next Parliamentary term). Overall, the public did not view these missions as achievable in the near term, with fewer than 50% of respondents thinking that any of the Government’s missions will be fully or partially achieved in five years. The mission relating to violent crime reduction was seen as the least achievable, with a majority (57%) saying that the Government will either make only a small amount or not make any progress towards achieving this mission.

We explored this sentiment further, asking those that thought the Government would fall short of fully achieving each mission why they thought this. Common reasons across all the missions were that the Government will focus on other priorities, will take the wrong approach, that it lacks the necessary tools or ideas, or doesn’t have enough money. For the NHS mission, the predominant reason was that the Government doesn’t have enough money to achieve this mission, with almost half selecting this option, compared with just a third selecting the next highest option (lacking the tools or ideas).

We also explored the perceived achievability of the missions in our focus groups. Participants’ confidence in the Government achieving the missions was generally low, although there was a sense that people expect an incoming government to be ambitious and that the Government would at least try to meet the goals, even if the deadlines weren’t realistic.

Each of our focus groups explored attitudes to different missions in greater depth, with one focusing on the NHS and the other clean energy. For the NHS mission, when shown some of the mission-specific targets, participants strongly felt that they were overambitious and unachievable in the time frames given. For the clean energy mission, after being shown some mission-specific targets, some participants felt more confident in the mission and its achievability, while other still expressed doubts.

The economy and mission investment priorities

Building an NHS fit for the future is seen as the highest priority mission for government investment, while making Britain a clean energy superpower is seen as the lowest priority.

We asked a series of questions to explore perceptions of the UK’s economic situation, and which missions the public see as the highest priority for Government investment.

We first asked respondents their opinion on the Government’s representation of the UK’s economy and government finances. Respondents were shown the statement: “The Government has said that there is limited money to spend at the moment, and that things are tough economically”, and asked whether they felt this was an overstatement, understatement, or an accurate report of the economic situation. Respondents were broadly evenly split, with around a third saying the Government is overstating or accurately reporting the situation, and a quarter saying it is understating. Notably, there are clear differences between respondents of different political leanings.

Those who intend to vote for the Conservative party or Reform UK in the next election were much more likely to say that the Government is overstating how tough the economic situation is (52% and 56%, respectively, compared with an average of 32%), while those intending to vote for Labour or Liberal Democrats were more likely to say that the Government is accurately reporting the economic situation (49% and 39%, respectively, compared with an average of 32%).

We then asked which mission respondents thought should be the highest and lowest priority for the Government to be investing its money in, allowing them to pick only one option in each case. When choosing the highest priority for public investment, 44% of respondents selected “Build an NHS fit for the future”, followed by “Kickstart economic growth” (28%). When choosing the lowest priority for public investment, 36% selected “Make Britain a clean energy superpower”, followed by “Break down barriers to opportunity by reforming childcare and education systems” (26%).

This relative prioritisation of the missions was consistent with attitudes expressed in our focus groups, with many participants putting the NHS, economy and crime missions as top priorities. Most participants viewed “Make Britain a clean energy superpower” as the lowest priority, although reasons for this feeling varied between participants. (See carousel below.). However, one participant expressed the opposite sentiment, seeing clean energy mission as a higher priority, citing that sustainable energy is forward thinking and good for the UK economy.

We concluded this section of our poll by asking respondents whether the Government has the right missions overall. Less than half think that the Government has exactly or mostly the right missions (45%). Those with higher levels of formal education and younger respondents (under 44 years) were more likely than average to say that the Government has mostly or exactly the right missions than older age groups. Unsurprisingly, respondents intending to vote Labour were more likely than average to think these missions are the right ones (68% responded ‘exactly’ or ‘mostly’ right).

Attitudes to R&D-based approaches to the Government’s missions

Key takeaways

• Up to a third of people selected investing in R&D as one of the top three ways to address the missions, however R&D isn’t the most obvious approach to most people
• When linking R&D to the missions, giving a specific example beyond simply saying ‘investing in R&D’ tends to increase the proportion of people who see R&D as a good solution
• Providing hypothetical approaches (R&D or non-R&D) to tackle the missions rarely shifts how people feel about the mission – however, there is a notable shift in positive views towards the crime-related mission when an R&D approach is involved

Strategies to achieve the missions

Although some people see R&D approaches as the best ways to achieve the missions, they were not the most obvious approach. Our focus groups demonstrated that people had concerns about the risks and effectiveness of R&D approaches.

For each of the five missions, we tested the extent to which people instinctively saw investing in R&D as an effective approach to achieve the mission.

Respondents were given a list of potential ways that the Government could tackle each mission, including an option focused on R&D. This was before respondents were provided with an explanation of the term, to test their unprompted views on R&D’s role. CaSE’s previous public opinion research has demonstrated the importance of emphasising the purpose of R&D when engaging the public. As such, we tested two R&D-focused statements by splitting the sample into two groups: One saw only “Investing in Research & Development” as an option in their list, while the other half were shown the same phrase followed by a relevant example of a purpose of R&D, such as “Investing in Research & Development to develop new treatments and medicines” for the mission relating to the NHS. For simplicity, below we only show the results for this latter group.

When asked to select up to three of the best ways for the Government to achieve its missions, investing in R&D was generally somewhere in the middle to bottom of the options, typically selected by between a quarter to a third of respondents for each mission. The types of strategies that featured as the top three most selected options were usually examples of other popular, tangible actions such as increased hiring of staff, building infrastructure or investing more in that sector in general.

In all cases, the R&D approach that included an example was selected by about 5 percentage points more respondents, although this increase rarely shifted the relative popularity of the R&D option among the others listed. The clean energy and education missions saw the R&D option rank higher than other missions and were also the only missions where including an R&D example led to a shift in relative popularity, from fifth to third most selected in both cases.

The mission where the R&D approach was chosen least often compared to other missions was the crime-reduction mission to “take back our streets”.  Here, investing in R&D was the least selected option overall, after ‘Don’t know’ or ‘None of the above’, regardless of whether the R&D’s purpose had been shown or not (20% and 13% with or without purpose, respectively).

We also explored the relationship between R&D and the missions in our focus group discussions. Participants were given a definition of R&D and asked to consider the five missions and think of examples of R&D would benefit any mission. In agreement with the R&D option for clean energy ranking higher than for other missions in our polling, the clean energy mission was an immediate choice in our focus groups, with participants citing examples of R&D into a wide range of renewable energy sources. Participants did also see a link between R&D and benefits to the other missions, with further examples given of facial recognition technology, digital diagnosis tools, and modernising the curriculum that would support the crime, NHS and education missions, respectively.

During one of our focus groups, we specifically explored people’s perspectives on strategies to achieve the NHS mission. Participants mainly thought of non-R&D approaches at first, focusing almost exclusively on strategies to address NHS staffing shortages. When prompted to consider R&D approaches, participants described examples of AI supporting cancer diagnosis and digitisation of the NHS. However, these ideas were also accompanied with concerns about the ethics of AI use in medical settings, as well as concerns about the costs of researching new medicines that do not always lead to clinical benefits.

R&D’s influence on attitudes to the missions

Including a hypothetical Government approach to each mission – regardless of whether this is R&D or non-R&D based – tends not to substantially shift attitudes towards the missions.

We asked a series of questions to further explore whether the public’s attitudes to the missions – including their achievability and prioritisation – would be affected by the idea that R&D was playing a role.

For every mission, we split respondents randomly into three groups. Each group was shown a statement said to come from the Government: “One of our key missions for the Government is to” and then shown one of the following options:

• Mission statement alone, to act as a baseline: e.g. “kickstart economic growth”
• Mission statement with an R&D approach, which was the same R&D example for each mission as was included in the previous question: e.g. “kickstart economic growth by investing in Research & Development of new technologies and solutions to problems”
• Mission statement with a non-R&D approach, to help assess whether any impact was due to R&D or the inclusion of an example: e.g. “kickstart economic growth by making it easier for new businesses to set up”

It should be noted that the groups were randomised independently for each mission, so the same people were not shown the same type of option (e.g. the ‘mission only’ option) for each of the missions.

After seeing the statement, respondents were asked to rank on a five-point scale the extent to which they would describe the plan as: achievable or unachievable; the correct priority for the Government or not; forward thinking or short sighted; as showing the Government has their interests at heart or not; and to what extent the Government would fully achieve this goal.

Comparing the mission statements alone, we found:

• Kickstarting economic growth was seen as slightly more achievable, aligning with the results of our earlier question, where this mission was seen as more achievable in five years than others.
• However, no mission was perceived as being much more likely to be achieved in full than the others, although the crime-reduction mission was seen as least likely to be fully achieved. Again, this is in agreement with this seeming least achievable in five years.
• The most forward-looking missions were building an NHS fit for the future and making Britain a clean energy superpower.
• Building an NHS fit for the future and taking back our streets by halving serious violent crime were seen as the missions that most show the Government has public interests at heart.
• The three missions most seen as being the correct priority for the Government were the same top three identified in our earlier question on mission priority for Government: the NHS, economic growth, and crime-reduction missions.

In general, including a hypothetical Government approach to each mission – regardless of whether this is R&D or non-R&D based – does not shift attitudes substantially. However, there are some notable exceptions.

The missions for which providing an example approach did elicit some subtle changes in attitudes were “build an NHS fit for the future”, “kickstart economic growth” and “take back our streets by halving serious violent crime”.

For the NHS and crime-related missions, the non-R&D approaches of “hiring more nurses and doctors” or “hiring more police officers around the country”, respectively, increased how achievable the missions felt, while there were no increases for the R&D approaches.

For the economic growth mission, adding the R&D approach of “investing in R&D of new technologies and solutions to problems” substantially reduced the degree to which this was felt to be the correct priority for the Government, and the extent to which it was felt the Government had their interests at heart. This trend was relatively consistent across different demographic groups and voter groups. Women were generally less convinced of economic growth as a priority mission, with 56% saying it was a correct priority when no approach was provided, compared to 66% of men. With the R&D approach included, this drops to 41% of women and 54% of men. Similarly, respondents in socioeconomic group ABC1 have a higher base prioritisation of the growth mission (65%) than those in C2DE (56%), yet both groups still show lower prioritisation when the R&D approach was given (55% for ABC1, 40% for C2DE).

However, for the crime-reduction mission, the R&D approach saw a slight increase in the proportion of people saying the plan was forward thinking and more likely to be fully achieved by the Government, with the R&D approach of “investing in Research & Development of new security technology” eliciting a slightly stronger increase than the non-R&D approach of “hiring more police officers around the country”. The perception that the mission was forward thinking shifted more strongly among men with the addition of the R&D approach (from 51% to 59%) than women (47% to 49%), and for Labour’s 2024 voters (57% to 67%) than Conservatives (where it shifted slightly downwards from 46% to 35%).

During our focus groups, we showed participants three examples of current UK R&D relevant to the NHS or clean energy missions and asked whether their opinions on the achievability of the mission had changed after discussing these R&D approaches. For the clean energy mission, participants reacted positively to the R&D approaches, relating the research to tangible impacts on people’s lives as well as discussing the benefits that R&D investment into clean energy has provided to their regional economy. For the NHS mission, participants were less positive about the examples shown but recognised that different approaches would appeal to different people.  

Across both focus groups, participants voiced scepticism about whether the Government would be transparent about progress towards the missions, regardless of whether they used R&D to support their approach, and concerns that the attempts to achieve the missions would be mishandled financially.

Perceived importance of R&D in achieving mission-based objectives

Key takeaways

• When given more detail on the objectives within the missions, those relating to the NHS are a clear top priority, while objectives relating to the clean energy mission are a low priority
• Many think R&D has an essential or important role to play across all mission-based objectives, with particularly strong majorities in areas relating to the economy, NHS and clean energy missions
• People in socioeconomic groups AB are more likely to recognise the role of R&D in climate mission objectives than those in socioeconomic groups DE, who instead focus more on R&D’s role in the NHS mission objectives
• The “build an NHS fit for the future” mission was seen as benefiting most from investing in R&D

Most people think R&D has an essential role to play in the NHS, economy and clean energy missions. Our focus group participants strongly identified the clean energy mission as benefitting from R&D, giving examples of R&D into a wide range of renewable energy sources.

To explore respondents’ attitudes towards R&D’s role in achieving specific missions in more detail, we provided two examples of mission-related objectives in more familiar language. For example, for the mission to “make Britain a clean energy superpower” we included the objectives reducing carbon emissions and tackling the threat of climate change,

To understand the relative prioritisation of these mission objectives, we ran a MaxDiff analysis. This involves presenting participants with a selection of the ten objectives and asking which should be the highest priority for investment from the Government, and which should be the lowest priority.

Objectives relating to the NHS are a clear priority, with improving the quality of the NHS the highest priority (net score 45%), ahead of reducing NHS waiting times (30%). Growing the economy performed almost as well, with the third highest net score of 28%, substantially outperforming the other economic objective of creating new jobs, which had a net score of -3%.

While we have seen nuances between growth and job creation in previous polls, these options typically yield fairly similar levels of support. MaxDiff questions like this force prioritisation, and ensure evaluations are relative. Our results from this survey and previous polling are consistent with two things being simultaneously true. First, that similar proportions of people prioritise growth and job creation, regarding both to be important. Second, that when forced to choose which one is more important, people will typically opt for growth.

In line with the earlier question on high and low priority missions for investment, the two objectives relating to the clean energy mission are both ranked in the bottom three, although tackling the threat of climate change (net score -25%) is notably higher priority than reducing carbon emissions (-37%), which is the lowest priority objective overall.

We see some clear demographic trends in these priorities. Respondents in older age groups prioritise both NHS objectives considerably more than average, while younger groups place greater importance on other objectives, such as the climate and childcare, than older groups. When it comes to voting behaviour, we see some predictable trends, with those who intend to vote for the Green Party prioritising the climate objectives more. Those who intend to vote for Liberal Democrats or Reform UK prioritise these less and instead prioritise objectives on crime-reduction.

More than half think R&D has an essential or important role to play across all objectives shown, with particularly strong majorities saying R&D is important or essential for areas relating to the economy, NHS and energy missions. Very few respondents felt that R&D does not have a role to play at all in the mission-based objectives. The two objectives that saw a high proportion of respondents seeing no role at all for R&D were in reducing crime in the UK (12%) and improving the quality of and access to childcare services (13%).

Later in the poll, we conducted a Max Diff analysis on these objectives, asking which respondents thought R&D would have the most significant part to play in achieving, and which R&D has the least significant part in.

R&D is seen as having the most significant part to play in improving the quality of the NHS (net score of 41%), growing the economy (25%) and reducing NHS waiting times (18%). Notably, the climate objectives did not rank highly, with reducing carbon emissions having a net score of -20% and tackling threat of climate change -9%. This is despite a majority seeing an important or essential role for R&D in these objectives in the question posed earlier in the poll. In addition, previous CaSE research has shown that 42% think new research is essential for tackling climate change, and that 75% think that investing in an R&D solution is a better way to address climate change than a non-R&D solution.

We also see differences in perceptions of the role of R&D in these objectives between different socioeconomic groups, with those in groups AB more likely to see the role of R&D in reducing carbon emissions and tackling the treat of climate change, while those in socioeconomic groups DE predominantly focus on the role for R&D in the NHS objectives.

We then asked participants to look again at the missions themselves and asked which they thought would benefit the most from investment in R&D. When allowed to choose just one mission, “build an NHS fit for the future” was the most selected mission, chosen by 35% of respondents, followed by “kickstart the economy” (22%) and “make Britain a clean energy superpower” (18%).

The top two missions align with the top objectives in our MaxDiff analysis where R&D is seen as having the most significant role to play. They are also the same top two priority missions for Government investment. It is possible that respondents’ intrinsic prioritisation of the missions, irrespective of their relationship to R&D, is contributing to the ranking we see here.

However, it is notable that the clean energy mission does not follow this pattern. Clean energy was seen as the lowest priority mission for Government investment but is the third most selected answer for the mission benefiting most from investment in R&D. There is then a substantial gap between the proportion selecting this answer (18%) and the fourth most selected mission to “take back our streets” (7%).

The idea that R&D will benefit the clean energy mission was reinforced by our focus group discussion. As noted in the Strategies to achieve the missions section, participants were able to give a range of examples of R&D that would benefit the clean energy mission, suggesting that the link between this mission and R&D is clear in people’s minds.

Competing priorities and clarity on R&D’s role in the missions

Key takeaways

• More people support investing in a relevant R&D-based approach to achieve a given mission than support cutting R&D investment to spend money on a non-R&D solution
• A majority think that the Government should invest more into R&D (66%) and use R&D as a tool to achieve its missions (72%)
• For the economy, NHS, and clean energy missions, although around half say it is clear how investing in R&D would help, around 30% say it is not clear
• Women and those with lower levels of formal education are less clear on how investing in R&D helps the missions and show less support for an R&D-led approach

Competing priorities and R&D solutions

Our polling found that a majority think the Government should use R&D as a tool to achieve its missions and that more people support investing in a relevant R&D-based approach to achieve a given mission than support cutting R&D investment to spend money on a non-R&D solution. However, in our focus groups, people expressed concern with investing in R&D solutions over non-R&D solutions.

We posed a hypothetical situation for each mission, asking whether it would be better to invest in an R&D solution to achieve the given mission, or better to cut investment in R&D to spend the money on a non-R&D solution. In each case, the examples were the same as those used previously in this poll.

Overall, we see greater support for investing in R&D solutions than for cutting R&D investment in favour of non-R&D solutions. For the three missions where R&D was felt to have an important or essential role earlier in the poll (NHS, clean energy and economic missions), a majority of respondents thought it would be better to invest in R&D than cut R&D funding to support the non-R&D solution.

For the mission “break down barriers to opportunity”, for which fewer people thought R&D would play an important role, we see slightly less support for the R&D solution than for the other missions: 46% think it would be better to invest in R&D to develop new technologies to be used in education. However, we still see more support for this R&D-based solution than cutting R&D investment in favour of a non-R&D solution. Only 36% said it would be better to cut investment in R&D to spend the money on hiring more teachers and child carers.

When it comes to different demographic groups’ support for R&D solutions to the missions over non-R&D solutions, in general we see fairly consistent responses irrespective of age, socioeconomic status and voting intention. We see less support for an R&D-led approach from respondents who are either female or with lower levels of formal education. This echoes results from CaSE’s July 2022 polling, when we asked a similar question about whether it was better to address a series of issues with an R&D or non-R&D solution. In these questions, women are generally less likely to choose the R&D solution.

To further understand people’s perception of R&D’s role in the missions, we asked respondents which options from a list of R&D solutions they thought would contribute most to the given missions.

The NHS mission was the only one where a majority selected one option, which was developing new life-saving medicines and treatments that can help diagnose and cure diseases faster, chosen by 57%. There was then a substantial gulf between this and a group of other answers all selected by around a third of respondents, including improving personalised medicine, digitisation of the NHS and clinical trials.

For the other missions there was typically a more even spread of answers, with the top answers focusing on:

• Teacher training (38%) and modernising the curricula (37%) for the education mission
• New methods of generating clean electricity (43%) and improved efficiency of renewable technology (38%) for the clean energy mission
• Improving healthcare (40%) and developing new sources of clean energy (33%) for the economy mission

It is notable that the top two solutions for the economic mission relate to two of the other Government’s missions, namely the NHS and clean energy missions. This suggests the public naturally link economic growth with success in the other missions.

Our focus groups highlighted that, when it comes to funding R&D for the missions, competing priorities are at the front of people’s minds. This echoes CaSE’s previous research, where participants expressed concerns about major societal problems like the cost of living.

In the focus group that focused on the NHS mission, most participants felt that the Government would be better to spend its money on the immediate problems facing the NHS – such as staffing – rather than long-term R&D approaches. However, some participants still felt that R&D was something that should always be invested in or was worth prioritising for societal and economic benefit.

Notably, when the group discussing the NHS mission was asked specifically about R&D into new medicines, some participants felt that this should be less of a priority for public investment as charities and private companies already invest into this type of R&D.

Similarly, participants in the group discussing R&D for the clean energy mission felt that private companies should shoulder more of the costs of research, with some expressing concerns about the impacts of profit-driven companies on customers.

Clarity on R&D’s role in the missions

Only around half of people say it is clear how investing in R&D would help the NHS, economy and clean energy missions, with 30% saying it is not clear.

To understand attitudes towards R&D’s role in achieving the missions overall, rather than individually, we asked respondents whether the Government should invest more into R&D, whether it should use R&D as a tool for the missions, and whether it is clear how R&D would help achieve the missions.

Two-thirds of people agree or strongly agree that the Government should invest more into R&D (66%), and an even larger majority (72%) agree that it should use R&D as a tool to achieve its missions. However, people in socioeconomic groups DE, those with lower levels of formal education, or those intending to vote Reform UK showed less support for using R&D as a tool to achieve the missions.

In addition, more than a third (37%) of all respondents thought it was unclear how R&D would help the Government achieve its missions, a much larger proportion than those who disagreed that this was unclear (28%).

We explored this lack of clarity further, asking whether or not it was clear how investing in R&D would help achieve certain missions. For the economy, NHS, and clean energy missions, a majority say it is clear how investing in R&D would help. However, around a third say it is not clear, with the remaining 15% being uncertain (‘Don’t know’) for each mission.

It is notable that clarity on the role of R&D in the economic mission is lower than a similar question in our polling from March/April 2024. The previous question was not framed around the Government, or Labour, missions, and found that 65% said it was clear how investing in R&D would grow the economy, with just 23% saying it was not clear.

R&D’s role is even less clear for the education mission, with similar proportions saying it is not clear how investing in R&D would help (39%) and that it is clear (44%).

Notably, the proportion of respondents saying it is clear how investing in R&D would help achieve the missions roughly aligns with the levels of support for R&D solutions in the earlier question that asked respondents to choose either an R&D or non-R&D solution. The three missions for which it is most clear how investing in R&D would help the mission are the three that obtained greatest support for R&D investment over other solutions. We also see similar demographic trends on whether it is clear how R&D helps the missions, with women and those with lower levels of formal education feeling less clear on how investing in R&D would help achieve the missions.

Attitudes to R&D and national security

Key takeaways

• The public thinks investing in R&D for advanced security technologies should be a high priority for the Government to improve national security, second only to tackling cyber-attacks and misinformation
• A majority (55%) say it is clear how investing in R&D would help improve national security, while 28% say it is not clear
• A plurality of respondents thought the proportion of public R&D funding spent on defence was appropriate

Around half of people think it is clear how investing in R&D helps national security and taking an R&D approach to improve national security was popular, even when framed as a competing priority with a non-R&D approach.

CaSE’s previous polling found that a majority of respondents would be more supportive of the Government investment in R&D if they knew it was going towards tackling any issues apart from housing and the UK’s ability to defend itself. The latter trend was particularly notable for younger respondents, who were far more likely to say they would be more supportive of R&D investment if they knew it was going to support any issue except defence, where there was a net increase in support of just 15% compared with 64% for climate change.

To explore this topic further, we concluded our September 2024 polling on R&D’s role in the Government’s priorities with a set of questions on attitudes to R&D and improving national security.

We informed respondents that “the UK Government has also announced plans to improve national security” and asked which, from a list of approaches to improve security, they thought should be the highest priority for the Government.

[Note that by this point in the poll respondents had been given a definition of R&D and answered many questions relating to R&D. In addition, respondents were asked to select just one response, rather than three, and so these results are not directly comparable to the results for the other missions.]

Some 17% of respondents thought investing in R&D for advanced security technologies should be the highest priority for the Government, second only to tackling cyber-attacks and misinformation campaigns (selected by 19%). The least popular strategy was committing to the UK’s nuclear deterrent (selected by 6%).

Men, those in socioeconomic groups AB, those with higher levels of formal education and those intending to vote for Labour in the next election, were more likely to select the option to invest in R&D.

When asked which single option should be the lowest priority for the Government, the answer given most often was ‘Don’t know’ (27%), followed by committing to the UK’s nuclear deterrent (20%).

We next asked about competing priorities. A majority (52%) said that to improve national security it would be better to invest in R&D into new defensive technologies, compared with 29% who said that it would be better to cut investment in R&D to spend the money on hiring more military and defence personnel. As with the questions on the missions, we see less support for the R&D solution among women and those with lower levels of formal education (driven mainly by uncertainty, rather than opposition).

When we asked which approach from a list of R&D-based solutions people thought would contribute most to improving national security, the most popular answer was inventing new technology to prevent attacks on the UK (49%), followed by finding new ways to prevent cyberattacks (44%). After these, the remaining solutions were all equally popular, each chosen by around 30% of respondents.

When it comes to clarity on how investing in R&D would help improve national security, we see similar levels as for the missions, with a majority (55%) saying it is clear. Some 28% said it is not clear and 17% answered ‘Don’t know’.

Our final question looked at attitudes to the proportion of public R&D spending that is spent on defence. We told respondents that “the Government currently spends 13% of public sector R&D funding on defence” and asked whether this is too much, the right amount, or too little. The largest proportion of respondents thought this was about the right amount (41%). After this group, there is a weighting towards this being too much (26%) rather than too little (17%), but a sizable proportion also answered ‘Don’t know’ (16%).

Attitudes of Labour’s ‘target voters’ towards R&D and the missions

Key takeaways

• The Labour Party is already looking ahead to the next election, and the target voters described in this section are those it is expected to be focusing on attracting or maintaining
• Target voters overall tend to align with Labour-leaning respondents
• Subgroups of target voters who voted Conservative in 2019 then Labour in 2024, and those who voted Labour in 2024 but are considering Green or Reform UK often differ from each other and from the overall opinions of those who voted for or say they plan to vote for these alternative parties
• 80% of those who voted Labour in 2024 but are considering voting Reform think Britain should lead the world in R&D, which is more than the average for all respondents (68%)

Who are Labour’s target voters?

Despite the new Government having only been in power since July 2024, the Labour Party – and many observers – are already considering the voters Labour will need to attract or maintain in order to win the next election. Although these are hard to predict, there are theories as to the voters who will be of most interest. We are describing these groups as target voters. These cohorts of voters are anticipated to have an influential role in political thinking and communication over the coming years.

First, we can consider the groups of voters it will be important for Labour to retain in the next election. There are three groups that are likely to play an important role in Labour’s future: the two flanks of the Labour Party’s most recent voters but who are considering other parties (Labour’s “forward-looking” target voters), and those who swung from Conservative to Labour between the last two elections (Labour’s “backward-looking” target voters). They may still intend to vote for Labour but are considering alternatives. In more detail, these are:

Forward-looking target voters:

• Voters who supported Labour in the 2024 election, but who are likely to consider voting for the Green Party in a future election. (For ease, this section describes this subgroup as ‘Green target voters’)
• Voters who supported Labour in the 2024 election, but who are likely to consider voting for the Reform UK Party in a future election. (For ease, this section describes this subgroup as ‘Reform UK target voters’)

The Green target voters are larger in number, but the Green party is typically challenging Labour in seats with strong Labour majorities. The Reform target voters, which have likely grown in number since this polling was carried out, are a greater concern to Labour in marginal seats. Both are considered in this section, but it is likely that the Reform target voters will be more important to the Labour party, given their geographic and electoral significance.

Backward-looking target voters:

• Voters who supported the Conservatives in the 2019 election and supported Labour in the 2024 election. (For ease, this section describes this subgroup as ‘Conservative 2019 target voters’)

Second, there are the groups of voters that Labour would seek to make gains among in order to secure a larger electoral victory. One group that is gaining particular focus are those who voted for Reform in 2024 and express an openness to voting Labour. In a number of UK constituencies where Reform was second to Labour, these voters – and the voters Labour is hoping to retain – will play a decisive role in the next election. This is a smaller group of voters, and they are not included in the analysis of our survey, but we have explored their views through qualitative research, which is discussed at the end of this section.

Priorities of target voters

When it comes to which issues the new Government should prioritise, forward-looking target voters overall tend to align with those who intend to vote Labour at the next election. If we look at the backward-looking Conservative 2019, and forward-looking Green and Reform UK subgroups, we also see differences between these groups and the opinions of all those who indicate an active voting intention for either Green or Reform UK parties or who voted Conservative in 2024.

For instance, 27% of the subgroup of Green target voters said the Government should prioritise “taking action on climate change”. Looking at the overall results from all respondents to our poll, this more closely aligns with those intending to vote for Labour (20%) than those intending to vote Green (45%).

Similarly, 25% of those in the Reform UK target voter subgroup said they would prioritse “reducing the number of ‘Small Boats’ crossing the Channel”, which is closer to the views of all those intending to vote Labour (15%) than those intending to vote for Reform UK (64%).

The Conservative 2019 target voter subgroup (those who swung from Conservative in 2019 to Labour in 2024) were more concerned by “small boats” (31%) than those intending to vote Labour (15%). However, this still distinguishes them substantially from 2024 Conservative voters, where 53% placed this as a priority. The Conservative 2019 target voter subgroup were also more likely to prioritise “generating economic growth” (44%) than 2024 Labour voters (34%) and 2024 Conservative voters (34%).

We see a similar trend if we look at target voters’ views on whether the Government has the right missions overall. Overall, forward-looking target voters are only slightly less likely than those intending to vote Labour to say the Government had mostly or exactly the right missions (64% and 68%, respectively). This is in contrast to the overall average of all respondents (45%). Similarly, a majority of the backward-looking Conservative 2019 target voter subgroup felt the Government has the right missions (55%).

While we see several differences between the subgroups of target voters, there are also examples where they hold similar opinions. When asked whether they agree that “Britain should lead the world in research and development”, 81% of Green target voters, 80% of Reform UK  target voters, and 75% of Conservative 2019 target voters agree or strongly agree, all of which exceed the overall average for all respondents (68%). We also see similar strong and above average support among Green and Reform UK target voters for the statement that “the Government should focus more on research and development for Britain’s future”.

Target voter attitudes in our focus groups

Our focus groups were held in two constituencies chosen to explore views among different target voter groups:

• Hendon: The Conservative 2019 target voter subgroup, who swung from voting Conservative in 2019 to Labour in 2024
• Kingston-Upon-Hull East: A smaller group of those who voted Reform UK in 2024 and are considering voting Labour in future. (This group was not analysed in the section above on polling.)

We found a number of similarities between the two groups. One of which was their perceptions of the scale of the issues facing the country. Focus group participants considered these challenges to be large, with many voicing scepticism about the Government’s ability to achieve the mission targets in the timeframes given. However, some welcomed ambition from the Government, with one participant saying:

“They’re our Government, they’ve got to have ambition. I’d be a bit worried if they’d come into power and were saying ‘actually, no, there’s nothing we can do about this’.”

Female, 59, Business Manager, C2, Reform 2024 considering Labour, Kingston upon Hull East 

Despite low levels of awareness of R&D, participants across the two groups held a broadly positive view of R&D’s potential in supporting the Government to address some of the key challenges facing the country, aligning with our quantitative data.

R&D was viewed as a favourable solution to the missions when its impacts would be tangible. For instance, during discussion of the clean energy missions, an R&D project that reduced energy bill costs was positively received. Similarly, the greatest support for R&D approaches to help the NHS mission were for examples relating to new treatments that participants felt would bring direct benefits to patients.

Where there was resistance, it typically came from a general concern about the ability of the Government (or any government) to deliver and concerns around whether the money invested in R&D solutions could be better spent on other more immediate priorities (which are also discussed in the section on competing priorities):

“I’d just be interested to see a timeline of how long these ideas would take to materialise. For example, if the next government that gets in isn’t Labour, I have then done three years of research, spent all that money researching it, and then the next government, absolutely pooh pooh it. And say no, we’re not going to do that. We’re going to have this [different] idea, and we’d like to do this. So all that money is then wasted.”

Female, 52, Shop Assistant, C2, Reform 2024 considering Labour, Kingston upon Hull East     

One of the main differences we note between the results of our qualitative and quantitative research around target voters is on attitudes to addressing immediate problems compared with the long-term solutions that R&D can bring. Our quantitative results indicated that for the NHS mission, most would lean towards investing in R&D rather than cutting investment in R&D to fund more immediate, non-R&D solutions, including among Conservative 2019 target voters (62%). In qualitative discussion with Conservative 2019 target voters, participants tended not to think of R&D approaches unless prompted, with some saying that money would be better spent fixing immediately problems, such as staffing.

“If they have money to invest into research, then I think they should be putting that money into the investment of staff…They’ve had this many years to try sort it out by doing research. Clearly they haven’t.”

Female, 23, Classroom Assistant, Conservative 2019 target voter, Hendon

Previous CaSE research has shown that relating R&D to healthcare drives up support for R&D investment. However, there is a desire for urgent action to improve healthcare and the NHS and so we have also seen support for proposals to cut the R&D budget and use the money to recruit more doctors and nurses.

Collectively, our results indicate that, at least at the time of the polling (in September 2024) and the focus groups (December 2024), these target voters do not appear to have drifted significantly far from other Labour-leaning voters.

In the time since our polling was conducted, the Conservative party selected a new leader and it may be that the proportion of voters considering voting Conservative grows in significance, including for Labour strategists. Equally, at the time of writing, Reform UK continues to return strong polling results and presents a novel challenge to the traditional parties when it comes to understanding how and why they are losing (or gaining) voters.

CaSE’s public opinion research will continue to track the views of those who are likely to change the results of the next election and consider the impact or influence this may have on policymakers and politicians of all stripes.

Support for R&D investment

Key takeaways

• A clear majority (87%) think investing in R&D is important for the long-term success of the UK, citing benefits to future generations, national preparedness, and economic growth
• Around a third of respondents can think of very few or no ways that investment in R&D benefits their lives
• 42% of people agree that R&D shouldn’t be funded by taxpayers, continuing an increasing trend in agreement since 2022

At the mid-point of this survey, we asked some broad attitudinal questions relating to R&D and R&D investment, many of which were repeats of previous polling.

When gauging respondents’ opinions on investing in and prioritising R&D, we found:

• When asked how important, if at all, investment in Research and Development (R&D) is for the long-term success of the UK, a clear majority think investing in R&D is somewhat or very important (87%), of which 50% think it is very important. This majority support is highly consistent across demographic groups.
• The top three perceived benefits of the Government investing more money into R&D were that it will:
  • improve the lives of future generations (46% of respondents),
  • make the UK better prepared for the future (45%), and
  • get the UK economy growing (45%)
• The perceived benefit of getting the UK economy growing by investing in R&D is consistent with a strong public awareness of the connection between investing in R&D and economic growth, a subject that we explored in greater detail in our previous polling in March/April 2024.

We sought to understand the associations that respondents had with investing in R&D, asking people to rank on a five-point scale the extent to which hypothetical Government plans to increase investment in R&D would show: commitment to solving real problems; interest in helping future generations; and whether they would expect taxes to increase to achieve this.

A majority see increased investment in R&D as showing a commitment to solving real problems (67%) and showing an interest in helping future generations (71%), with very few people (12% and 11%, respectively) thinking the opposite is true. However, a majority (52%) also expect that taxes would go up to achieve increased investment in R&D, which is more than twice as many that would not expect taxes to go up (25% of respondents).

Lastly, we explored people’s attitudes towards the UK prioritising R&D, asking the extent to which they agreed that “Britain should lead the world in research and development” and that “The Government should focus more on research and development for Britain’s future”.

A clear majority agree with each of these statements, with slightly higher levels of support for the statement focusing on Britain’s future over its global ranking in R&D. This aligns with our previous findings in our 2022-23 polling, which showed that emphasising the future benefits of R&D bolsters public support for R&D investment more than arguments around the UK’s international competitiveness.

This section of the survey also asked a number of questions to track attitudes over time. These were fairly consistent with our broader findings, which are discussed in detail on our Research Summary page. However, we do note that:

• The proportion of people saying they can think of very few or no ways that R&D investment benefits them has fallen to 30% (from 37% in February 2023 when first polled)
• The proportion of people agreeing that R&D shouldn’t be funded by taxpayers has continued to rise, now reaching 42% (from 22% in July 2022 when first polled)

Additionally, this poll allowed us to confirm attitudes to local R&D-related actions or benefits that were tested in March/April and June 2024, and saw a return to similar levels as the first of our 2024 polls. These results are included in the main write up of our 2024 polls.