Strategic Vision
The Strategic Alliance has grown out of genuine and deep strategic drivers. The Universities are both medium sized with a broad subject spread in their academic domains and yet providing the full range of high quality support found in much larger Universities. The synergistic research interests across our disciplines, the structural change in the Research Council Research stations in Aberystwyth and Bangor and the need to work more collaboratively across the HE sector in Wales to build resilience and capacity, have all provided an important environment for developing the collaboration.
The strategic vision is for a collaboration that is natural, embedded and driven by opportunity The Alliance is a collaboration which brings together mutual interests and mutual benefit, collaborating where it “makes sense” and where it brings tangible benefit to the two Universities or the region.
Under the Research and Enterprise Partnership, four joint research centres were established and those centres built a strong collaborative base harnessing, synergistic research opportunities. The research and Enterprise partnership saw in excess of £50m of research income secured over the five years of the partnership and culminating in two highly successful joint submissions to the Research Excellence Framework in 2014. The legacy of much of this work continues to develop and deliver new projects through the joint leadership of the Ser Cymru National Research Network for Low Carbon, Energy and the Environment and through joint responses to research funding opportunities.
Much has changed since the inception of the relationship in 2006. It grew under the Research and Enterprise partnership and expanded into the Professional services teams such as the research and enterprise support functions, the Human Resources teams, academic development and Information Governance teams. These teams continue to nurture strong relationship and address common challenges and change which affects both Universities.
The vision for the Alliance remains strong, much has changed in the regional context and in the sector but the Universities continue to see each other as significant strategic partners as we continue to develop.
Research Centres
- The Centre for Catchment and Coastal Research
- The Centre for Integrated Research in the Rural Environment
- The Centre for Advanced Functional Materials and Devices
- The Institute for Medieval and Early Modern Studies