The Department of Research and Innovation (DRI) is rapidly expanding with new projects and new ideas, not to mention an impressive portfolio of research income fuelled by the extraordinary efforts of our Academic Colleges, with support from our expert research support team in DRI. Total funding now amounts to a staggering £282 million!

As a mark of the University’s remarkable success we can boast the following facts as an indication of our progress:

• Research awards reached nearly £40 million in 2012/2013
• There are over 700 externally funded projects currently in progress with a cash value exceeding £280 million
• These projects are managed by some 300 principal investigators (PIs)with the assistance of hundreds more co-investigators and research assistants
• Since 2009, Swansea University has received £14million in grant funding allocated through the A4B programme to support innovation and engagement in Wales.

 The quality of the support that DRI provide our research community is of the highest priority to me.   I am therefore pleased to report that 90% of respondents to the 2013 independent PIRLS survey expressed satisfaction with the DRI service in the area of research support, with 23% of those surveyed regarding the DRI service as Excellent and a further 38% describing our service levels as Good. We will always strive to improve our service; however I can draw much encouragement from these results that our hard working team is delivering value on your behalf. 

DRI is always seeking innovative ways to evolve our service delivery – one such example is the recent introduction of PIPA (Principal Investigator Project Accounts) the on-line monitoring tool that provides a user friendly gateway to project financial information. PIPA is featured in this newsletter.

LEAD Wales

I am thrilled to announce that we have received further EU funding for our successful leadership development programme LEAD Wales which means that we will be delivering the programme to sector based and middle management cohorts from 2014 onwards. The LEAD team has also been exploring exciting ways in which we can link up the LEAD delivery with other activity on campus – I have been very encouraged  with the collaborative work that we have developed with the Institute of Life Sciences, for example (read more about LEAD Wales in this issue)

Business Development

The Department is leading the way in the creation of a culture of business development at the University, supporting the opportunities to diversify income through a Client Relationship Management (CRM) approach.  The CRM will empower a greater sharing of business contacts and opportunities in a managed and co-ordinated manner – this approach is gaining considerable momentum and I am grateful for the “can do” attitude of my Business Development Team and our colleagues within the Colleges. Working together on this development we are making fantastic progress.

There has been an explosion of activity here within DRI in the exciting area of business engagement.  I am delighted to welcome Claire Gardner to the University, who has been recruited to my new management team from the Said Business School at Oxford University.  Claire will lead a growing team of business professionals and she will apply her energy and experience in ensuring that this business development activity is joined with complimentary activity across campus.  It is vital that whatever we deliver in this area is supporting the University’s strategic objectives related to research growth, business engagement, student experience and the employability agenda – Claire will work with colleagues across the campus to ensure that we continue “join the dots”.  As an illustration of the growing scale of our engagement with business, I have outlined some “fast-facts” below:

• Swansea University has over 6000 collaborative relationships with businesses and 1100 external business development partners
• LEAD Wales, a flagship project for the University, has to date supported over 520 business leaders and directors leading to almost 370 of them gaining qualifications and an average increase in annual turnover of 26%
• Swansea University leads the Enterprise Europe Wales- a pan European Network of 55 member countries, recognised as the world's biggest support network for SMEs and a fantastic opportunity for Swansea University to develop international research and development collaborations
• Swansea University is the first university in Wales to adopt Easy Access Intellectual Property.  This enables Swansea University to offer certain of it's technologies to industries free and facilitates the transfer by using quick and simple agreements to make it easier for companies to obtaing IP and to put it to use

We hope you enjoy the latest helping of what’s happening in DRI, we are a highly collaborative department and we work best when working with like-minded partners inside and outside of the University. I encourage all staff to take some time to visit the Department and learn how we can help you in the area of research and innovation – our friendly team is always very happy to help.