First Minister announces £115 million to boost innovation, create exciting new Welsh products and high-quality jobs

During his first press conference of the new Assembly term, the First Minister of Wales Carwyn Jones will announce a £115 million package of support to boost innovation leading to the creation of hundreds of new products and high quality jobs across Wales.

With support from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and private sector investment, the Welsh Government is launching two new innovation projects: SMART Cymru and SMART Expertise.

Working alongside the current SMART Innovation project, launched by the Economy Minister Edwina Hart earlier this year, the three SMART programmes form an overall package of support for Welsh businesses and academic establishments. Together they will enable them to bid collaboratively for research and development funding and access information and advice from the Welsh Government to bring new ideas to the market.

Announcing the funding today, the First Minister said:

“As a pro-business government, we have a proven track record of backing winning ideas, like the iViTi ON, a light bulb that works in a power cut, or Concrete Canvas, the instant roll-out concrete.

“Delivered across Wales, the multi-million pound package of SMART programmes will help Welsh companies develop their new ideas by removing financial barriers and enabling collaboration between that academia, public and private sectors to deliver new Welsh products to the market place.

“Wales has an excellent record of producing world class scientific research. The Research Excellence Framework 2014 found more than three-quarters of the research submitted by universities in Wales to be world-leading or internationally excellent, and nearly half was found to be world-leading in terms of its contribution to the economy and society. This major investment will enable us to build on that and support more Welsh enterprises to commercialise their ideas, grow and create high-quality jobs throughout the country.”

Both projects announced by the First Minster today will run over the financial years 2015/16 to 2021/22. Their funding arrangements break down as follows:

• SMART Cymru will be funded through £27.32 million of European Regional Development Funds, with private sector match funding of £36.08 million making the overall budget for this element of the programme £63.4 million.
• SMART Expertise will be funded through £30.3 million of European Regional Development Funds, with private sector match funding of £21 million making the overall budget for this element of the programme £51.3 million.