The Committee asked Professor Corner a range of questions including relating to her early priorities for the role, how funding of higher education can help address regional inequalities and how she would ensure value for money for the taxpayer in funding higher education providers.

As Executive Chair, Professor Corner will be responsible for leading Research England in its critical role in providing more than £2 billion annually in grant funding to English universities for research.

She will also support knowledge exchange activity and oversee other major funding programmes, as well as the sustainability of the higher education research base in England.

Set up in 2018, Research England is the newest of the nine UKRI Research Councils. It “funds and engages with English higher education providers, to create and sustain the conditions for a healthy and dynamic research and knowledge exchange system in the higher education sector.”

Professor Corner has been Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange at the University of Nottingham since 2016 and has a background as a trained nurse and academic in cancer palliative care.

In July, it was announced that she had been chosen as the preferred candidate for the role of Executive Chair, taking up her official position in October 2022.