STEMM deficit hinders Welsh grant ambitions

Welsh universities will not secure a greater proportion of research income from the research councils unless they can make up a shortfall of relevantly qualified staff, a report by the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education has concluded.

In the past decade, Welsh government policies have greatly improved the nation’s research performance by encouraging collaboration and reconfiguration. But this cannot compensate for low levels of staff in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine, said the report, published on 14 May.

The Case for Growing STEMM Research Capacity in Wales found that in 2012-13, Wales’s academic research population was 0.5 per cent lower than its share of the UK population. Most of this deficit, the report says, involves STEMM disciplines. By contrast, Scotland has a 2.4 per cent larger per capita share of researchers.