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UK university research faces funding cliff edge as EU support ends

Across the bay from Port Talbot’s steelworks, one of the biggest metal plants in Europe, academics at Swansea University are laying the foundations of Wales’s green economy.

In campus labs, academics are inventing materials that stop steel corrosion to extend the life of machine parts and support sustainable industry. Nearby stands an “Active House” that can generate its own renewable energy.

“We’re not focusing on just short-term goals, we’re thinking about how we can develop capability over a number of years,” said Justin Searle, technology director for Specific, a university project that works with businesses to trial new approaches to green construction.

But these projects — along with more than 150 others in the UK — face imminent closure, as the EU funding that has supported them finally tapers out this month...

In its place, the UK government has set up the £2.6bn shared prosperity fund (SPF). However, it has different funding priorities and university leaders say the substitution has left many projects short.

Once gone, sector leaders say, most of these innovative research projects will not return, hobbling regional development and progress to net zero and skills targets, and leaving the innovation sector with a funding hole.

Paul Boyle, Swansea’s vice-chancellor, said the sector was “on the precipice of a disaster. I couldn’t think of another time when such a significant amount of valuable research and innovation work will be lost.

https://www.ft.com/content/ca6ed436-...4-4f532429e754