Today’s Great West Research and Innovation Day is a major milestone in GW4’s development, marking the launch of our new Vision, which outlines how we will develop pioneering, collaborative endeavours to drive innovation and economic growth across the Great West region and beyond until 2025.
We will be welcoming 100 delegates – including university senior management, early career researchers, professional services representatives, students from GW4 doctoral training programmes and more – to the Assembly Rooms in Bath to celebrate our collective achievements to date and discuss our ambitions for the future.
We will also be joined by high profile keynote speakers David Sweeney (Executive Chief Designate of Research England) and Dr Ruth McKernan CBE (Chief Executive of Innovate UK). David Sweeney will share the progress of Research England, as part of UKRI, and how universities can engage with this new body, while Dr Ruth McKernan will focus on the opportunities presented by the Industrial Strategy.
Attendees will hear lightning talks on successful and innovative GW4 initiatives, including our world-first supercomputer, Isambard, and Bridging the Gap, which brings together arts and humanities researchers with the creative and cultural industries – to name just a couple.
I am looking forward to launching the GW4 Vision, which outlines the complementary and regionally strong research foundations upon which our globally competitive research will be built:
- Aerospace and Advanced Engineering
- New Energy Systems
- Next Generation Microelectronics
- Resilience, Environment and Sustainability
- Creative and Cultural Economy
- Living Well
- Digital Innovation
The Vision also demonstrates how we will achieve our future goals by taking action together to:
- Build GW4 Research Communities
- Build a Highly Skilled, Collaborative Workforce
- Build Connections
To do this, we will continue to rely on the inventiveness and generosity of spirit of staff and students across the GW4 Alliance. It is the input of colleagues at every level and across every department that makes us greater than the sum of our parts, and truly collaborative in nature and not only in name.
