BETTER INNOVATION IN WALES CAN LEAD TO A BETTER ECONOMY

Innovation is one of the key drivers behind the most competitive economies in the World. Yet as various studies have shown over the last decade, Wales is one of the least intensive nations or regions of the UK in terms of research and development (R&D). This is not only in regard to the considerably lower levels of research funding attracted by the university sector over the last two decades but also in terms of the lower levels of expenditure by Welsh firms on R&D which means that only a third are active in terms of innovation across the economy. This is despite hundreds of millions of pounds of European funding being focused to boost innovation since devolution which, unfortunately, has largely failed to increase the performance of either higher education or the private sector relative to the rest of the UK. So what can be done to improve this? That is the subject of a recent paper by two of our leading thinkers on innovation namely Professors Rick Delbridge and Kevin Morga