The former Welsh Labour government launched a call for evidence in early 2026 asking for input on the future of tertiary education in Wales. Plaid Cymru has now formed a minority government after the party became the largest in the Senedd in May. In its election manifesto, Plaid pledged to commission a review of university funding within its first 100 days in office (although signals are now that this will more likely be a reform the Seren programme – which funds promising Welsh students to study at top universities across the UK within this time.
The EPC welcomed the consultation, making a range of recommendations. Our response highlighted that:
- Engineering is of strategic national and regional importance within Wales. Engineering is central to Wales’s economic and societal priorities, including infrastructure development, advanced manufacturing, digital transformation, and the transition to net zero.
- For Wales to build a genuinely integrated tertiary system that strengthens national resilience, engineering education must be explicitly protected and strategically co-ordinated. Without intervention, financial pressures may lead to contraction of high-cost STEM provision, particularly engineering, undermining Wales’s ambitions for productivity and innovation.
- Engineering higher education is also expensive to deliver and vulnerable to financial pressures within current funding models. The financial sustainability in engineering has reached a critical point due to the inadequacy of current funding models for high-cost STEM subjects and the pressures this creates.
- Without targeted policy intervention, there is a significant risk that institutional financial constraints and market dynamics could erode engineering capacity within Wales. Such an outcome would undermine national ambitions for productivity, innovation, and regional economic resilience.
- For Wales to build a genuinely integrated tertiary education system that strengthens national capability, engineering must be explicitly recognised as a strategic subject and supported through subject-sensitive policy frameworks.
This requires
- subject-sensitive policy levers, including discipline-focused funding, regulation, and quality frameworks.
- Incentives for stronger collaboration across tertiary education and with employers to develop flexible pathways into engineering.
- Levers for access and widening participation frameworks tailored to overcome specific barriers in engineering disciplines.
You can read the full consultation response here.
