This Workshop was attended by Professor John Laver and a mixture of arts and social science colleagues from Wales, Scotland and England.
It was agreed that if academics could produce plausible examples of academic research (or of teaching) leading to wealth creation, such examples would strengthen the position of higher education and help the case for increased research funding from Government. There was a lively discussion on whether Humanities research could lead to wealth creation for the nation or whether it was mainly enriching for the individual. There was also debate as to whether there could be applied research in the Humanities.
There was a general agreement that if one looked for a primary wealth creation function - that is, something that could be sold - then there were few such wealth-creating projects in Humanities and Social Sciences. However, if one adopted a secondary wealth creation function – a more general societal benefit – it would be easier to see benefits from Humanities and Social Sciences. Examples were suggested from the Heritage Industry, studies leading to the development of interactive media, human communication research, the contribution of area studies to exports and the evaluation of public policy.
There was a debate around the question 'Does the push for wealth creation distort research?' There was a view that ESRC had been able to adapt to calls for relating research to wealth creation more easily than Humanities could have done. The concrete example was the ESRC's 'Pacific Run' initiative.
The third phase of the discussion centred on the conflict between the demands of the RAEs and the White Paper calls for 'Realising our Potential and Wealth Creation'. These were seen as incompatible.
Fourthly, the group felt that Humanities and Social Science scholars should concentrate on arguing for a broader concept of wealth creation, and decided to ask the Panel:
Can the panel think of any creative ways to widen the Government's definition of wealth creation so that scholars in the Humanities and Social Sciences can use it to benefit their research?