Research cash fuels jobs boom

Research income that has nearly tripled in the past 12 months is fuelling a jobs bonanza at Swansea University, with 500 posts expected to be created over three years.

The jobs, mostly research positions, cover a broad range of subjects and will help Swansea build teams of academics at its new Institute of Advanced Telecommunications (IAT), the Institute of Life Science, Medical School and the Technium Digital facility.

The first wave of 25 posts, including six professorships, are in engineering, law, mathematics, modern foreign languages, the arts and humanities, and the Medical School. The £30 million IAT, launched last December, is looking for a senior lecturer and four researchers.

Annual research income has increased to £35 million. Swansea is forecasting yearly growth in turnover of up to 20 per cent over the next three years.

Richard Davies, vice-chancellor, said: "Swansea's growth is driven by ambition to develop the strength of the university. We are strategically positioning the university in terms of its strengths in research and its capacity for being a powerhouse for growth in the knowledge economy."