The centres will bridge the gap between universities and businesses, helping to commercialise the outputs of Britain’s world-class research base.
According to Business Secretary Vince Cable, the centres will allow companies to access cutting-edge technologies that would otherwise be beyond their reach and take ideas from the drawing board to the market place. They will play a key role in helping firms develop new products and processes so they can grow and prosper.
More importantly, no decision has yet been taken as to where the centres could be based but a spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills confirmed that locations in Wales had not been ruled out.
Given this, I fully expect the Welsh Assembly Government to start making the case now to Vince Cable to get him to locate a number of these centres in Wales.
We are already have the high specification buildings in place all over Wales in the form of Techniums, a number of which have struggled to attract commercial return in the last few years. That is an advantage that no other region has - the infrastructure already in place for the development of these elite technology and innovation centres.
Wales should get at least £10 million of this investment if we applied the Barnett formula but we should be going for more, given the real need for the Welsh economy to focus on developing more innovative businesses.
The real question is whether WAG is prepared to fight for such investment or, as we have seen over the last week, will revert to a victim mentality that this country simply doesn't deserve.
