Universities as Economic Drivers

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:07 pm on 6 March 2018.

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Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 2:07, 6 March 2018

Well, I would argue, of course, that they are already in place, to a great extent, and are being developed. If we look, for example, at the Menai science park development around Bangor University, it's one example of collaboration between Government, industry and Bangor University itself. Other examples? Well, Swansea University's second innovation campus, of course—one of the largest knowledge economy developments in the UK, which, I know, before the Member for Aberavon points out to me, is in his constituency, but nevertheless, of course, it's an important driver for both neighbouring constituencies and beyond.

We have the Trinity Saint David SA1 innovation quarter and that is estimated to contribute more than £3 billion to the regional economy over the next 10 years. We have SPECIFIC, based, of course, at Swansea University, collaborating with Tata Steel, with NSG Pilkington and AkzoNobel, and that focuses on the generation storage and release of energy related to buildings, and, of course, more widely, a compound semiconductor cluster infrastructure between Cardiff University and IQE and Aberystwyth's innovation and enterprise campus. So, we are seeing now the development in a number of universities of innovation and—the example I've given in Bangor—science parks in order to turn intellectual property and research into jobs.