Commentary on Sections Research and innovation Section 106: Financial support for research and innovation: terms and conditions
346.This section enables the Commission to impose terms and conditions on funding to a registered provider as it considers appropriate. If the funding is passed onto a collaborating body the Commission could, for instance, as a condition of funding, in turn require the recipient provider to impose conditions on any funding it passes to a collaborating body. The Commission cannot impose terms and conditions on funding received by a provider which comes from other sources.
347.This section also makes provision for how funding decisions under section 105 should be made by the Commission. The Commission is required to have regard to what is generally known as the Haldane principle (namely that decisions on individual proposals are best taken following an evaluation of their quality and likely impact).
348.The concept will apply to all funding decisions under section 105 made by the Commission. Therefore the provision allows that the general direction on funding should be led by the Commission, but also expects decisions regarding the research to be made by experts in the field, outside of the Commission, for example ensuring that research proposals benefit from competitive tendering exercises might be one way of meeting the requirement to have regard to the principle. The purpose of the requirement to have regard to this principle is to ensure that academic freedom is not compromised during the process.