EU-financed Swansea University campus boosts economy

Welsh Assembly Finance Minister Jane Hutt has visited the site of Swansea University’s £450m Bay Campus to see how EU funds are helping boost investment and create jobs.

The development, which will welcome its first students in September 2015, has benefitted from £50m of Welsh Assembly funding, including £35m from the European Regional Development Fund and £60m from the European Investment Bank. EU funds will support an Energy Manufacturing Centre and Innovation Hub, which will provide world class research facilities and enable the university to significantly increase its ability to access research council grants and other sources of EU funds, including Horizon 2020.

It will also provide an ‘open innovation’ environment for industry to collaborate with academic expertise to help develop manufacturing products and processes and introduce new ones, contributing to the economic growth of the region.

Hutt said: “This is an excellent example of the benefits of EU funds in Wales, not only through helping to establish a leading research and innovation facility to drive forward our knowledge economy, but also the local employment and skills opportunities it is creating  in the construction of the campus. I am also pleased to see how the government and Welsh organisations are working with private investors, like the European Investment Bank, to develop funding solutions for infrastructure investments in Wales.”

As well as driving forward research and innovation, the Bay Campus is currently providing significant local employment opportunities. More than 1,100 workers have already been inducted to work on the site.

Professor Richard B Davies, vice-chancellor of Swansea University, said: “This major development has been made possible by substantial funding from government, the European Structural Funds, and the European Investment Bank, as well as from industry. This partnership working means that the University can continue to expand, provide new opportunities for our students, and meet the needs of industry in providing cutting-edge world class research, helping to drive economic growth in the Swansea Bay region and beyond.”