This week the body representing Welsh universities, and whose members are vice-chancellors, published its manifesto for the 2026 Senedd.
As would be expected, Universities for a Stronger Wales, is thoughtful and ambitious document that sets out how universities contribute to the nation’s economy, culture and communities, and calls for a new partnership with government built on investment, trust and shared purpose.
Yet, read against the reality of what has happened to Welsh higher education in recent years, it feels more like a diplomatic plea for survival than a blueprint for renewal and crucially, avoids the hard questions that now define the crisis facing the sector.
Over the past eighteen months, I’ve written extensively about the challenges that have engulfed Welsh universities and the evidence remains stark. Tuition fee freezes have squeezed finances, the rush to recruit international students has created a dangerous dependency and poor governance have left some institutions in serious difficulties.
Worst of all, the Welsh Government, despite being responsible for the higher education sector since 1999, has largely looked the other way whilst the sector lurches from crisis to crisis.
The new manifesto acknowledges the symptoms but not the causes and whilst it speaks of “sustainability,” “skills,” and “research excellence,” it does not admit that parts of the system have been run into the ground by short-term decisions, complacency, and a failure of strategic leadership.
The manifesto calls for a funding review, which is welcome, but it cannot be another technical exercise in cost accounting. What is needed is an honest national conversation about what kind of higher education system Wales actually needs namely how many institutions, what missions they serve, and whether they are fit for purpose in an economy that desperately needs skills, innovation, and local engagement.
Equally absent is any serious reflection on the role universities should play in the wider innovation economy. While the manifesto rightly celebrates research and calls for more research and innovation funding, it overlooks a deeper truth namely that Wales has fallen behind because our research rarely translates into business growth.
As I argued earlier this year, we remain the only Ƶ nation without a coherent national strategy for research commercialisation with only 1.7% of Ƶ business R&D taking place in Wales, and spinout creation from our universities lagging far behind other regions.
If universities are to drive a stronger economy, then rhetoric must turn into practical support such as a dedicated Welsh spinout fund, shared technology transfer infrastructure, and closer alignment between universities, investors and industry, ideas that are missing from the manifesto. Indeed, the absence of any mention of the role that universities can play in developing the entrepreneurs of the future speaks volumes.
The document also leans heavily on the language of “anchor institutions” and the idea that universities are engines of regional growth and community prosperity. It’s an attractive notion, but one increasingly at odds with reality. Indeed, when a university in the heart of the South Wales Valleys spends more time and money recruiting students from overseas than helping local young people into higher education, it is hard to argue that the anchor still holds.
Perhaps the most striking gap is political and while the manifesto politely urges a “new partnership with government,” it does not ask why the relationship is broken in the first place. The truth is that higher education has become the forgotten corner of devolution with successive Welsh Governments tinkering at the edges by creating commissions, merging quangos and launching reviews but never articulated a clear vision for how universities fit into a national economic strategy.
This vacuum has allowed decline to take root through redundancies, course closures, falling R&D investment, and a slow erosion of public trust. As I wrote earlier this year, Wales’s higher education system is burning and few seem to notice or, worst still, care.
And whilst the manifesto’s optimism is admirable, it risks masking a deeper malaise by presenting universities solely as victims of funding pressures and ignoring their own complicity in creating those pressures through poor decisions, weak governance, and failure to adapt. Indeed, by asking government for more money without offering structural reform, it repeats a cycle that has persisted for over a decade.
And yet, despite all of this, I still believe Welsh universities could play a transformative role in the nation’s future. They remain one of the few assets Wales has with genuine global reach, talent, and potential but unlocking that potential will require courage.
It may mean acknowledging that some institutions may need to change radically - or even merge - to survive. It will also require a funding model that rewards quality and regional impact, not size and international dependency and the creation of a new compact with government based on accountability as well as autonomy.
Above all, it demands leadership by people who are not only professionally capable but personally invested in the future of Wales. If the Universities Wales manifesto sparks that conversation, it will have served a valuable purpose but if it is simply another glossy appeal for resources without reform, it will go the way of so many other reports that now gather dust in the offices of politicians in Cardiff Bay.
Let’s not forget that the sector remains in a fragile state - Swansea University is looking to make £25m of savings by reducing staff numbers, Cardiff University is about to embark on a restructuring of its professional services that could cost hundreds of jobs, and academics at Bangor University have declared they have no confidence in their vice chancellor and the institution’s senior management.
Given this, the time for polite lobbying is over and the future of Welsh higher education, and much of Wales’s economic and social fabric, depends on an honest reckoning with how we got here and a bold plan for how we get out.
Without that, the slow decline of our universities will continue unnoticed until, one day, we will wake up and realise that we no longer have a higher education sector that is fit for purpose and by then, it will be too late.
