PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

WESTERN MAIL COLUMN 28TH AUGUST 2011 Earlier this week, the Welsh Government’s chief scientific adviser produced his excellent report on a strategic agenda for science in Wales . Long overdue, Professor John Harries pointed out some of weaknesses that prevail in Wales and promised that science would be planned and led more effectively for the benefit of all of us. To achieve this, the agenda would strive to increase the quality and reputation of Welsh universities as powerhouses of the ideas world, to teach and carry out top class research. It would also create an environment in which the business, academic and public sector worlds work ever closer, encouraging innovation and cooperation, to translate excellent research into good business. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it would aim to increase the number and quality of jobs in industry, commerce, education, research, and innovation. Indeed, one of the main driving forces throughout his report is that a more effective...

WESTERN MAIL COLUMN 20TH AUGUST Earlier this week, the labour market data for Wales was released, showing that unemployment had increased by 10,000, leaving Wales with the highest jobless rate (8.4%) of the four “home nations” with 122,000 people out of work. However, there is a deeper issue here that both the press and politicians seem to conveniently ignore every time the data is released, namely that of economic inactivity. These are the group of individuals who are not in work, but who do not satisfy all the criteria for unemployment (wanting a job, seeking in the last four weeks and available to start in the next two). It also includes students, those in retirement and those who are not actively seeking work. Currently, there are 520,000 economically inactive people in Wales, which account for just of a quarter of all working age adults. To put that into perspective, it is equivalent to seven times the number of Welsh fans that were packed into the Millennium Stadium to w...

Vital lessons for Welsh business in the fast expanding arena of social media

Nearly ten years ago, I presented a paper at a special workshop organised by the European Union. It brought together a range of projects under the Targeted Socio-Economic Research initiative to present their scientific and policy findings, to debate and exchange views with some users and policy-makers and to provide some policy guidance on the regional dimension of innovation. What these projects had in common was an analysis from different perspectives of the role and new prospects of innovation and education policies to promoting the appropriate environment for SME’s at local level. At least three different levels of analysis were addressed namely: A group of projects has investigated the organisation of the linkages between education systems, namely universities, and the private sector. A second group of projects has analysed the networking and clustering activities of SME’s at regional and local level. A third group of projects tried to identify the different factors influen...

WESTERN MAIL ARTICLE AUGUST 13TH 2011 During the summer, the new Minister for Business will be considering her policies very carefully in terms of what government can do to grow the Welsh economy over the next five years. In one of the rare statements made since her appointment, the Minister has hinted at continuing the efforts of her predecessor and focusing government funding on a number of key sectors in the economy. Yet as the economy continues to stutter, should there be a different approach taken by the Welsh Government? Certainly, there are those who believe that the no-brainer solution to kick starting the economy, both regionally and nationally, is to target policies at the small number of businesses that have the potential to grow and create jobs. For example, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta) has argued that high-growth businesses – those with 10 or more employees which experience employment growth averaging 20 per cent or more per ...

For those beginning on their entrepreneurial journey, this is a simple but highly effective presentation on how to build an effective and successful new business. Some don't like the "mystic" style of the author Guy Kawasaki but I love it!

Western Mail article 6th August. Last week’s crash in global stock markets was, according to some observers, inevitable given the financial mess in the eurozone that has yet to hit rock bottom and the recent political wranglings in Washington that have embarrassed the World’s largest economy. But what of the UK economy? Given the way that the media have been painting a general picture of doom and gloom over the last few months, do we also have reasons to worry? There have rightly been concerns that the UK economy is not hitting its targets, growing by a disappointing 0.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2011, as compared to 0.5 per cent in the first three months of the year . However, the Office for National Statistics were keen to point out that a number of special events, including the additional April bank holiday, the royal wedding and the after effects of the Japanese tsunami, could have had a net downward effect of as much as 0.5 per cent. Hopefully, this will mean tha...

A great interview with Anita Roddick about the origins of the the Body Shop. She was not only a great entrepreneur, but a woman so ahead of her time in her attitude to business in particular. Anita Roddick is sadly missed but at least this video shows the creativity, enthusiasm and honesty that made her the success that she was, and Body Shop continues to be.

Western Mail column July 30th 2011 Last week, the Welsh Government, through European Structural funding, provided a grant to help develop tidal power in West Wales. The provision of direct funding to the private company Tidal Energy will enable the new £11 million “DeltaStream” device to be manufactured, a development that will generate clean tidal power in West Wales by 2012. There have been various commitments, over the years, by the Welsh Government to develop this vital part of the clean energy industry, yet despite the rhetoric, there has been little real action. Therefore, the funding for this vital innovation should be broadly welcomed, although it should be of some concern that it has taken the Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO), which manages the European Structural programmes in Wales, over eighteen months to finally approve the project since the company first submitted an application back in December 2009. Despite this, the fact that a private sector organisatio...