Letter to Cabinet Secretary – 29 June 2017

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In response to the proposed reduction in funding allocations for 2017/18, the President of the Society has written to the Cabinet Secretary for Education. A copy of the letter can be accessed using the button above.

Post Brexit, it will be important that the Welsh economy can develop in a challenging and competitive environment. The Learned Society shares with the Welsh Government the belief that a vibrant research sector is imperative to growing Wales’ productivity, innovation and economic prosperity

Wales relies more than other UK countries on its universities for much of its research base. Our higher education sector operates in a competitive global environment where international recognition of its research excellence and innovation has the potential to enhance Wales’s reputation and encourage inward investment. Governmental support for university research has been a catalysis for what has been achieved within the sector in Wales since devolution.

Therefore, I am writing on behalf of the Learned Society of Wales, to express concerns regarding the large reduction to funding allocations for 2017/18 announced in HEFCW’s June circular. As Wales’s National Academy of science and letters, we bring together the most successful and talented research fellows connected with Wales for the shared purpose and common good of advancing and promoting Wales’s excellence in research. We consider that any cuts to the recurrent QR funding is likely to have significant short term and long term impact on the existing and planned research activities of universities. […]