Better strategy needed to take advantage of EU development funds – says National Assembly report

16 February 2011

Wales could win millions pounds of additional EU research and development funding with a more strategic approach to participation, according to a new National Assembly for Wales report.

The Cross-Party European and External Affairs Committee has concluded that Wales's ability to move up the value chain into the knowledge economy could be improved if the Welsh Government, Welsh universities, the private sector and local government all concentrated their efforts in a more strategic way to tap into these resources.

These funding sources are quite separate from the Common Agricultural Policy or Structural Funding, less well known and don't receive the attention they should, said the Committee.

But with the future of Structural Funding unclear after 2013, the Committee felt not enough was being done to capitalise on other channels, in particular the Research and Technological Development stream, or FP7 fund, soon to be replaced by the FP8 fund.

Chair of the Committee, Rhodri Morgan AM, said: “This inquiry found that there is definitely scope for Wales to up its game.

“A more strategic approach to encourage participation in all of these EU programmes will help to achieve both the Welsh Government’s objectives and the shared European goal of significantly increasing research and development spend across the EU, as set out in the Europe 2020 strategy.

“This report comes as the debate on the future EU Budget begins in earnest, and in advance of the European Commission bringing forward proposals for EU funding programmes after 2013.

“Wales’s ambition to become a fully-fledged knowledge economy, means that it needs to be part of that debate and in Europe’s thinking for these new programmes.”

ENDS