A party of twenty EU delegates met with leading clinical innovators during a tour of Cardiff Medicentre.

The delegates took a tour of the Medicentre as part of a Welsh Government Innovation “Learning Journey” workshop.

The Welsh Government is sharing innovation and advanced manufacturing best practice with European partners as part of the €937,661 EU-funded initiative, MANUMIX. The four year project involves a consortium of four European regions, the Basque Country, Lithuania, Finpiedmonte and Wales. It promotes best practice by showcasing innovation policies while improving current evaluation systems. Wales is the fourth region in the consortium to host the learning journey workshop.

Cardiff University reports the delegates met Welsh innovators to review the impact of instruments and policies. This included a visit to Cardiff Medicentre, a joint business incubation centre run by Cardiff University and Cardiff and Vale University Health Board.

Professor Ian Weeks, Dean of Clinical Innovation at Cardiff University School of Medicine, said “Delegates have been able to see first-hand the vital role of Cardiff Medicentre in bringing government, academia, the NHS, and business together to develop tomorrow’s advances in healthcare today. As we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the NHS, collaborative partnerships like ours will be a potential game-changer in improving healthcare and providing opportunities for economic development for generations to come.”

Commenting on the workshop, Mark Drakeford, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, said “We are committed to building and maintaining our European partnerships and this learning journey workshop provides the ideal platform to showcase Wales as an outward-looking economy with the technological expertise to become a world-class hub for innovation.”