Science in Wales is suffering because it receives less government investment than other parts of the UK, a report by Save British Science warns this week, writes Anna Fazackerley.

The report says Wales is falling significantly behind other regions in securing research council funding. The region receives £15 per head annual investment from the research councils, compared with £41 per head in Scotland and £33 per head in England.

Peter Cotgreave, the director of SBS, called for a substantial injection of cash from the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales.

He stressed Welsh universities would also need to be more focused about how they made their applications.

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The organisation was concerned that there was only one research council laboratory in Wales - the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council's Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research.

Dr Cotgreave added that there was a damaging consensus that Wales was never chosen for any major research facilities.

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Plaid Cymru has taken up these concerns. In a policy statement released in advance of the assembly elections, it says: "The decision to locate the Diamond synchrotron-radiation project near Abingdon rather than in Wales or Merseyside is a clear example of the failure of the UK government to modify the long-standing policy of locating centres of scientific research in the overheated south of England."