Wales needs to be more “streetwise” in accessing EU research funding according to National Assembly Committee report
25 July 2012
A National Assembly for Wales Committee is calling for improvements to the way Wales secures funding for research and innovation from the European Union.
During its inquiry into legislative proposals for a new European Union research and innovation funding programme, called ‘Horizon 2020’, which will succeed the current Framework Seven Research Programme (FP7), the Enterprise and Business Committee heard that Wales is “under performing” in securing EU research funding.
Under the 2007-2013 FP7 Wales secured €84 million of funding, representing only 2.26% of the total UK share. In comparison, Scotland secured 9.4% of funding.
The Chief Scientific Adviser for Wales told the Committee that Wales needs to be more “streetwise” in accessing funding under European programmes in the future.
The Committee’s interim report makes a series of recommendations, including calling on the Welsh Government to publish a statement that sets out its position on the Horizon 2020 proposals and to explain how it will align funding from Horizon 2020 with EU Structural Funding to achieve synergies for improving Wales’s performance in winning research, development and innovation funding.
The European Commission’s final legislation will provide the framework into which Welsh universities, research centres and businesses will have to bid to secure EU research funding from 2014- 2020.
“The Committee is generally supportive of the Horizon 2020 proposals. We see them as presenting a significant challenge and important opportunity for increasing the competitiveness of the higher education sector in Wales, and for strengthening engagement between higher education and business, both at home and abroad,” said the Chair of the Enterprise and Business Committee, Nick Ramsay AM.
“We recognise that Wales’s achievements in attracting research funding as a whole will not be transformed instantly, but we hope that Horizon 2020 will be a catalyst for Welsh Government, higher education and business to build together the critical mass for research and innovation to help transform the Welsh economy in the future.”
More information on the Enterprise and Business Committee and a copy of the report can be found here.