Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE) will use the opportunity offered by the upcoming elections in Scotland and Wales to raise the profile of R&D and forge stronger connections with politicians in Holyrood and the Senedd.
CaSE is launching a collaborative, highly tailored campaign to raise R&D up the agenda in the Scottish and Welsh parliaments. We will gather public opinion insights to underpin an eye-catching campaign, alongside a portfolio of case studies that showcase the breadth of R&D across Scotland and Wales.
R&D can improve lives and livelihoods – but only if the public and policymakers see its full potential and support investment into it. The world-leading R&D taking place in Scotland and Wales is a crucial component in maintaining a thriving UK R&D sector and ensuring benefits to society and local economies are felt across all nations.
The 2026 Holyrood and Senedd elections offer the R&D sector an opportunity to nurture a new cohort of supporters among elected representatives in Scotland and Wales. These elections come amid a shifting political landscape; there is an urgent need to proactively engage all new parliamentarians and positively influence their attitudes towards Scotland and Wales’s R&D sectors.
The project will see CaSE commission fresh research into public attitudes to R&D in Scotland and Wales, providing detailed insights on the most salient issues in those nations. This will inform a campaign that demonstrates the relevance of R&D to parliamentary candidates and, after the election, elected representatives, including bespoke statistics and case studies that showcase the breadth and depth of nearby R&D.
This project builds on the success of CaSE’s constituency-level campaign during the 2024 UK General Election.
Sponsors
CaSE’s core investment in this project is supported by a grant from Wellcome, but it cannot be delivered without sponsors based in, or with a strong connection to, Scotland or Wales.
Sponsors for this project are:
- British Heart Foundation (BHF)
- Cancer Research UK (CRUK)
- Compound Semiconductor Applications (CSA) Catapult
- University of Edinburgh
- University of Glasgow
- University of Strathclyde
