Securing the future of Welsh research: Government must use Learned Society’s expertise

Dame Elan Closs Stephens, the new President of the Learned Society of Wales’, argues that the Welsh Government must address the erosion of Wales’ research base and that, in the breadth of experience gathered within the Learned Society, it has a powerful tool at its disposal.

As President of the Learned Society of Wales, I write to offer the Society’s support to the recent statements made by the President of the British Academy, Professor Susan J. Smith and by the Chair of Universities Wales, Vice-Chancellor Professor Elwen Evans.

All the activity of the Learned Society of Wales serves one purpose: to make Wales, in its scientific, its social and cultural life, more vibrant, more sustainable, more vigorous, and more ambitious.  Higher Education and Research not only enrich the individual, but they also enrich the whole of society.   Yet, after multiple years of financial stress, institutions are constrained to narrow the breadth of their offer at the very time that contemporary Wales needs to be more highly educated, more curious and more innovative. We have a new Government that promises a new start. The Society calls upon the new Welsh Government to look afresh at the sector as a matter of urgency, and, where necessary and possible, to work with the UK Government on issues which are cross-border and beyond the remit of devolved governments.

The Learned Society of Wales has already answered the previous government’s call for evidence on the role of Tertiary Education.  Just as the British Academy has made clear, our submission speaks for the benefit that Learning and Research bring to Wales rather than for individual institutions. Higher Education and Research and Innovation are severely weakened across all areas of Wales and across all disciplines, particularly the Humanities. This erosion of the Welsh research base will have consequences for Wales’s competitiveness, affecting our ability to attract not only students but also the future research talent which will underpin economic growth, and drive health and social improvements. It is the Society’s hope that any Commission or Panel looking at the Sector afresh will be thorough, imaginative, well-grounded in evidence and relatively speedy.

As President, I have written to all the Cabinet Members of the new Welsh Government, offering the Society’s breadth of expertise as a valuable resource in their deliberations on areas of public policy. We have over 700 Fellows, leaders in their fields within academia, in cultural and public bodies and industry, united in a common mission to give back to Wales.

I call on the new Government to understand the resource they have in the Learned Society, as Wales’s National Academy, and to make use of the independent expertise that is at their disposal to enhance the life of Wales now and for future generations.