USW to benefit from £900,000 funding for Skills Cluster for Wales

The University of South Wales (USW) is a key partner in the creation of a Skills Cluster for Wales, supporting workforce development of the nation’s screen sector.

With £900,000 of National Lottery funding, the new ‘One Stop Shop’ will work with local industry, education and training providers to develop clearer pathways to long-term employment in TV and film production.

The funding supports the Academi Sgrin Cymru / Wales Screen Academy project – a collaboration between USW, Screen Alliance Wales and Bangor University – to continue nurturing the next generation of screen talent across Wales, by working with major TV and film studios to build capacity, capability, skills and knowledge for the whole country.

It will continue the talent pipeline of Further and Education to screen-based subjects and employment, through workshops and masterclasses in four embedded classrooms at Wolf Studios in Cardiff, Great Point Seren in Wentloog, Dragon Studios in Bridgend, and Aria Studios in Llangefni.

The BFI funding will enable the continuation of curriculum outreach work already taking place in schools and Sixth Forms across Wales. USW will also continue to work with its Strategic Alliance partner colleges – The College Merthyr Tydfil, Coleg y Cymoedd, Coleg Gwent, Bridgend College, and Cardiff & Vale College – to address skills gaps in the screen sector.

Huw Swayne, Director of Wales Screen Academy and Associate Dean for Partnerships and Business Development at USW: “We’re hugely honoured and grateful to BFI for this award to the Academi Sgrin Cymru / Wales Screen Academy project. It will enable us to build on the fantastic work we have done across Further and Higher Education to sustain and grow the pipeline of talent to the booming Welsh TV and Film Industry.”

USW joins other key partners BBC Studios, NFTS Cymru, Ffilm Cymru Wales, Into Film, Culture Connect Wales, TAPE, and Aberystwyth University on the delivery of the One Stop Shop in every region of Wales.

The One Stop Shop will focus on providing opportunities for all those currently under-represented in the sector, and in its initial two-year phase will seek to benefit and engage with more than 2,000 workers.

It will include bursaries to overcome barriers to entry, coordinated work experience placements, a full-time trained mentor on hand to provide advice to both new entrants and the existing workforce, and practical, newly-imagined training schemes.

Sara Whybrew, BFI’s Director of Skills and Workforce Development, added: “Wales is a key nation for the screen sector in the UK, home to large scale productions which are distributed across the globe, as well as content in the Welsh language.

“The partnership in place, led by Sgil Cymru, will be building on vital work that has been started and we hope the Skills Cluster will provide a strong foundation on which to further build game-changing training and work-based learning opportunities for diverse and representative talent across the nation.”