Vice President Joe Biden said he had no intention of running for the President in 2020 and revealed he would employ his White House staff at two universities to continue research on issues that he cared about.

Speaking to television show The View, he said he was only joking when he told reporters last month that he would run for the top job in four years’ time.

"[…] I have no intention of running for president but I do have the intention to stay deeply involved in everything I’ve done my whole life," he said.

The longtime Delaware senator and Pennsylvania native said he had arranged a deal to spend around $6 million on hiring experts and his White House staff to work on domestic and foreign policy, cancer research and violence against women.

The University of Pennsylvania and the University of Delaware has provided him, he said, with "a considerable amount of money" to employ his staff.

"I am going to have a full-blown staff, leading people in the country, on cancer care, on foreign policy, on domestic policy, and violence against women, and I’m going to run an entire operation out of the University of Delaware where if you name the 10 best people in the country on this, three of them will be working full time for me," he said.

The two universities declined to comment or could not be reached by The Independent. Further details will be available on 20 January.

"I haven’t figured out my gainful employment yet but that’s what I’m going to be doing," Mr Biden joked.

Mr Biden was known for spearheading the Cancer Moonshot initiative, fighting against domestic violence and leading the "It’s On Us" campaign against sexual assault. It was Mr Biden that introduced the Violence Against Women Act in 2000.

His son, Beau Biden, died of brain cancer in 2015.

He described to The View how Beau’s wife and two children "still miss their Daddy" and he spends time with them every weekend.