PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

Last week, the Higher Education Statistics Agency released the results of their latest business and community interaction survey (HEBCIS). This examines the interactions between UK higher education providers and business and the wider community and measures areas such as intellectual property (copyrights, trademarks, design rights, trade secrets and patents), regeneration programmes and continuous professional development. Not surprisingly, I believe that the most important data that is gathered by the HEBCIS survey relates to spin-off activities, more specifically the number of new graduate enterprises.  This is because it not only measures the contribution of higher education in establishing start-ups within each nation or region but, more importantly, gives an indication of whether the interventions developed by universities to boost enterprise results in the creation of more businesses. According to the survey, there was a 16% increase in the number of start-up firms founded by...

One of the headline promises by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the build-up to the last general election was a pledge to double government research and development (R&D) spending to £18 billion within five years as part of a new wave of economic growth. This builds on the target by previous government’s Industrial Strategy to raise investment on R&D to 2.4 per cent of GDP by 2027.  Whilst universities will be important in reaching this target, the majority of R&D in the UK is carried out by the private sector. Given this, it is critical that businesses are given the right support and incentives to invest into R&D over time. The good news is that the latest statistics show that R&D expenditure on research and development performed by UK businesses was £25 billion in 2018, an increase of nearly six per cent on 2017. In terms of sectors, pharmaceuticals remain the industry that spends the most on R&D accounting for £4.5 billion of expenditure in 2017 (or 18% o...

Earlier this week, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) released t heir future vision for research and innovation and how it can meet the economic, social and civic needs in Wales and beyond. Given that knowledge, both its discovery and commercialisation, is critical to the development of modern economies around the World, the aim of this new strategy is to ensure that Wales has an excellent research base within Welsh universities, especially in terms of one that supports innovation that boosts productivity in Welsh businesses.  From this, it can help deliver economic prosperity and social wellbeing for the people of Wales and make a vital contribution to increasing the proportion of UK GDP spent on research and development every year. It is also critical that whilst the research base be global in perspective, it will respond to challenges specific to the local region and engage with local communities to create new solutions.  Of course, it is easy to argue t...