In early February 2022 the Welsh government finally killed off the Reid review-derived strategy designed to encourage and enable Welsh universities to close the massive gap in research funding capture.
At the time, economy minister Vaughan Gething attempted to deflect any criticism – Wales has five per cent of the UK population but attracts only around two per cent of UKRI funding – on the basis that a new innovation strategy would soon take its place. At least by implication, the message was “trust us, we’ve got this!”
That strategy was published just over a year later on 27 February. Unfortunately, those reading the document in search of anything genuinely substantive – let alone potentially transformative – will have been sorely disappointed.
Indeed, with many of the key details of the strategy still to be worked out, and the body meant to deliver on it not even constituted yet – and apparently struggling to attract a suitable chief executive – it’s fair to ask whether the Welsh government is actually serious about research and innovation in Wales’ universities?
