Home Office launch Research, Development and Innovation Strategy

21 Mar 2025 12:17 PM

Research, development and innovation (RDI) plays a significant role in addressing the complex challenges facing the Home Office, helping them to develop technologies and services and build the evidence base they need to better protect the public and keep the UK's borders secure.

The Strategy supports existing Home Office strategies along with short-term needs, medium-term capability development and longer-term adaptability and resilience to achieve this vision. The Strategy is aimed at the whole Home Office, operational partners, and the wider RDI ecosystem in government, the Home Office supplier base, and internationally.

The 4 ambitions of the Strategy: 

1. A culture of innovation – fostering the conditions which encourage scientific inquisitiveness and promote an innovative mindset from the top down, helping to draw on RDI at the earliest opportunity
2. Challenge-led – RDI focusses on addressing the priority policy and oeprational challenges, keeping the focus on RDI pull-through for maximum impact
3. Capability-driven – developing coherent structures and building and nurturing capabilities that focus on shared challenges, accessing RDI expertise to create an effective and efficient ecosystem
4. In collaboration – partering across, and outside of, government and internationally on common RDI interests and challenges whilst supporting efforts to build UK strategic advantage.

The 7 drivers for change: 

1. Rapidly shifting technology landscape 
2. Limited visibility of RDI impact on Home Office outcomes 
3. Complex to navigate and access Home Office RDI system 
4. Ambitious cross-government RDI goals 
5. Support to the long-term evolution of Home Office business
6. Resource constrained RDI environment 
7. Home Office can be better at nurturing RDI talent 

The Strategy will enable delivery across the Home Office's priority outcomes including: 

• Safer Streets and Public Safety – for instance, halving knife crime within a decade 
• Border Security – help strengthen responses to border security threats 
• Asylum Transformation – innovation to help build a flexible, sustainable and efficient system 
• Homeland Security – enabling work on counter-terrorism, counter-extremism, counter-state threats, economic crime and cyber-crime by boosting capability in key technology areas such as AI and telecoms
• Economic Growth – stimulating investment in innovative dual-use technologies from the UK's National Security and Defence sector can enable the Home Office to support the UK's economic growth and prosperity 

You can find the full strategy here.