Category / innovation

Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) – events coming soon

events

A number of current HEIF projects are running events over the next few months. Please feel to register to attend and/or circulate to contacts you may feel would be interested:

Explore the application of rewilding concepts to Dorset.

Date: Thursday 5 May

Venue: Charlton Down Village Hall, near Dorchester, Dorset. DT2 9UA

For more information on the HEIF project click here.

Click here for more information on the event and to register.

FoodBiz

Date: Wednesday 18 May

Venue: Executive Business Centre, Bournemouth University

Follow  on Twitter: @EU_FoodSMART and visit the project website  www.foodsmartproject.net 

Agenda and register for FREE

Psychiatric  Genetic Counselling Workshops

Dates: Various in June and July 2016

Venue: Bournemouth University

For more information on this HEIF project click here.

Click here for more information on the event and to register.

 

Biotechnology YES 2016 is open for applications

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Biotechnology YES is an innovative competition giving early career researchers from diverse backgrounds a practical insight into how to commercialise research and recognise the benefits of industrial collaboration, providing a springboard for their own career development into a multitude of sectors. The competition is delivered in partnership, funded by sponsorship,  draws on expertise from industry and the research community and aims to encourage an entrepreneurial culture in the UK postgraduate and postdoctoral base for the benefit of the UK economy.

The challenge for participants is to prepare an oral business plan presentation, in a team of four or five, for a hypothetical bioscience start-up company seeking equity investment. The plan is based on a plausible idea based on real markets and developed over the course of a three day residential workshop. The workshop encompasses presentations and mentoring sessions from leading figures in industry who give their time and advice for free. It culminates in the presentation of business plans to a panel of ‘equity investors’. These individuals come from industry and academia and have decades of experience and proven track records of professional success. Winners from the regional workshops progress to the final held in December.

Workshop dates will be posted on the Biotechnology YES and BBSRC websites once finalised and and include Syngenta, GSK and Unilever .

The competition is open to all bioscience researchers registered at a UK university not just those funded by BBSRC. However, if any of the workshops oversubscribed, Research Council funded researchers will be given priority.

Find out more and APPLY by visiting www.biotechnologyyes.co.uk or www.environmentyes.org

Biotechnology YES 2016 is open for applications until 27th May 2016.

How well do local authorities use data?

open data

 

Across England, local authorities are asking questions about how they can redesign services, save money and drive local economic growth.

  • How many people will need adult social care services in 5 years time?
  • Which children are most likely to enter the care system and what support might prevent this happening?
  • How can traffic flows, public transport, cycle lanes and town centres be optimised to help local businesses to grow?
  • Which households are most likely to fall into council tax arrears?
  • How can money be saved on refuse collection by only emptying bins when they are full?
  • How effective are local authority commissioned services at delivering positive social outcomes?

Nesta’s new research programme – the Local Datavores – aims to help local authorities use data better.

Nesta are always keen to hear from people working on data projects in local authorities and related organisations. If you would like to be involved in the research, or have heard about or been involved in any pioneering data science projects, please get in touch at tom.symons@nesta.org.uk

Amsterdam is European Capital of Innovation 2016

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Following the announcement of a shortlist of nine cities (including Glasgow and Oxford in the UK) in January, Amsterdam has emerged as the winner of the 2016 European Capital of Innovation Award.

The city was chosen for its “holistic vision of innovation related to four areas of urban life: governance, economics, social inclusion, and quality of life” by a panel of independent experts – “for embracing a bottom-up approach based on smart growth, startups, livability and digital social innovation.”

An interesting read and some interesting videos and presentations from  the winners and runners up and those short listed.

Useful information for those following research into such topics as  smart cities, innovation , ecosystems.

In full.

Press release.

 

What does Innovate UK’s latest delivery plan mean to industry ?

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Innovate UK   have just published the 2016/17 Delivery Plan. In it, you will discover some important changes in the way  they intend to support business innovation.

Key areas of the delivery plan include:

  • a new sector focus – that is easier for industry, investors and government to work with
  • changing the frequency and nature of our sector funding competitions – so that they are broader in scope than previously and form a single stream of innovation funding
  • forming a single ‘open’ funding programme –  for applications from any technology or sector
  • enhancing the role of our innovation networks – in providing guidance and support to innovative businesses both nationally and regionally

To find out more read more on their blog: A whistle-stop tour of our delivery plan or check  out the website

 

Inspiring Future Innovation Event

events

 

 

Date: Tuesday 24 May

Time: 10.00am  – 4.00pm

Location: The Grange Road Business Park in Christchurch

Event information: A supply chain expo hosted by BAE Systems  in Christchurch and a chance to show innovation to not only BAE (who have people coming from far and wide) but others such as Cobham and Aish will also be exhibiting. This is the first annually held event hosted by  this organisation.  The aim being to  future innovation through showcasing BAE Systems’ own technology as well as technology from other companies. The event will provide a unique opportunity to discover new technology, as well as developing new relations with other companies within the supply chain, whilst raising the profile of exhibiting companies and providing a chance for networking and future collaboration opporuntities.

Registration is essential as there is a limited number of spaces available and will be assigned on a first come first serve basis.

To register your interest:  email –  inspiringfutureinnovation2016@baesystems.com and confirm whether you are interested in exhibiting and /or attending the event.

 

Universities increase income from business collaboration

Technology in the hands

UK universities earned £4.2 billion from provision of services to businesses and collaborative research in the 2014-15 academic year, up from £3.9bn the previous year.
The latest Higher Education Business and Community Interaction Survey (2014 – 2015), published on 7 April by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, looked at all publicly funded UK higher education institutions and their interactions with businesses and other organisations.
In 2014-15, the largest chunk of this income was from collaborative research involving public funding, which reached £1.26bn, up from £1.14bn in the previous year. This was a change in emphasis, as in 2013-14 universities gained most of their income from contract research. However, contract research earnings also increased between 2013-14 and 2014-15, from £1.2bn to £1.21bn.

Universities also upped their earnings from courses for business and the community by £35m to £715m, from regeneration and development programmes by almost £22m to £205m, and from intellectual property by £24m to £155m.

The analysis also includes information on the number of spinouts and start-up companies created by UK universities, and shows that the number of graduate start-up companies created in 2014-15 was 4,160, lower than the 4,581 companies started in 2013-14.

However, the total number of active firms with some involvement from a higher education provider in the UK was 13,045 in 2014-15, up from 11,856 in 2013-14.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England will publish its analysis of the data for England later in the year.

This article was posted in Research Professional.

You can set up your own personalised alerts including news  on Research Professional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in RKEO or view the recent blog post here.

 

 

Innovate UK launch new delivery plan – key sectors and funding opportunties included

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Innovate UK have launched their delivery plan for 2016/17 .

This  includes:

  • a new sector focus that is easier for industry, investors and government to work with
  • a 5-point plan to underpin activity across these sectors and drive productivity growth
  • clearer funding programmes that are easier to navigate
  • improvements to the way Innovate UK connects businesses to knowledge and partners
  • a stronger regional presence

With evidence of :”focusing ever more closely on scaling up SMEs” …

Clearer sector support has been established and these include four groups:

  • emerging and enabling technologies
  • health and life sciences
  • infrastructure systems
  • manufacturing and materials

Funding competitions for businesses are also to be simplified.

There will be 2 broad funding competitions covering each sector group per year, and 2 open competitions for applications from any sector or technology area. There will be other programmes and competitions in partnership with other government organisations.

Click here fore more information. 

Download the Delivery Plan.

Researching innovative pedagogy: An Evaluation of Team-based Learning

An Evaluation of Team-based Learning – 4-5pm in PG11, Wednesday 13th of April 2016

What is Team-based Learning?

Team-based Learning (TBL) is an example of the ‘flipped classroom’ concept whereby what might be described as traditional teaching content is accessed by students outside of the classroom while activities that might be termed ‘homework’ are conducted in class. In class, students have to answer questions as individuals to test them on their learning from the set pre-reading activities (termed the individual Readiness Assurance Test), then the same questions in allocated teams (team Readiness Assurance Test). Each team has a scratch card so that students can check if their agreed answer is correct (immediate feedback). Following that, teams then work on application exercises, where they have to apply their knowledge to problem-solving real-life scenarios.

Why bother with this approach?

TBL is thought to confer some advantages over traditional teaching methods in terms of student engagement and provides immediate feedback on student performance. While it does tend to mean some extra work for lecturers in terms of preparation activities, increased job satisfaction is commonly reported, and students report enjoying learning in this way. It is believed to improve critical thinking skills and in some cases improved exam performance has been reported. Further, this collaborative learning process promotes the importance of effective team-working, a skill desired of our graduates by many employers.

Do you want to find out more?

I am delivering a session on TBL at the CELebrate Conference 2016 next week. In this session, you will be introduced to TBL and get to experience a TBL session yourself! Quantitative (using the validated TBL-SAI instrument) and qualitative (focus group discussions) results from an evaluation of the implementation of TBL into a unit on the Adult Nursing degree programme will also be presented.

What to do now?

  1. Click here to watch this video before the session (it’s less than four minutes) -it’s a snippet from my online lecture on circulatory shock. Don’t panic if you’ve little knowledge regarding human physiology, it’s only to help illustrate the TBL approach – hopefully you’ll enjoy it!
  2. Then click here to book onto the session

Best wishes

Dr Jonny Branney

Creative England – latest funding opportuntites

Creative England is dedicated to the growth  of the creative industries. A key aim is to investin talented people across games, TV, film and digital media.
Latest funnds, garnts and loans currently available by Creative England and their partners can be found here.
If you are interested in submitting to any of the above calls you must contact RKEO with adequate notice before the deadline.

Please note that some funding bodies specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKEO Funding Development Officer

You can set up your own personalised alerts on Research Professional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in RKEO or view the recent blog post here.

If thinking of applying, why not add notification of your interest on Research Professional’s record of the bid so that BU colleagues can see your intention to bid and contact you to collaborate.

VOOM 2016: Pitch to Richard Branson to win a share of £1M in prizes

VOOM 2016 takes place over 14 weeks, including a huge public vote, a 29-hour Pitchathon (a Guinness World Records attempt, in fact), and a series of competitive face-to-face workshops.

Competition finalists will have the opportunity to pitch to Richard Branson and the six winning businesses will share over £1 million (€1.2 million) in prizes, plus additional support.

There are two categories:

  • START-UP – aimed at early stage start-up businesses
  • GROW – for businesses with revenue that are looking to grow

The winner of each category will receive social and PR support, a broadband and telecoms package, a carriage wrap on Virgin Trains, mentoring, financial advice, a £50,000 (€60,000) cash prize and much more. There are also prize packages for four runners up.

Crowdfunder are offering you the chance to run a crowdfunding campaign on top of (and as an integral part of) your competition entry. So while you are working hard to secure public support for your entry, you could also raise money at the same time.

The competition also allows you to put yourself forward for awards within your category:

  • The Impact Award – for businesses that put social and environmental impact, as well as profit, at the heart of their business
  • The Great Award – for businesses that fly the flag for Great Britain
  • The Crowdfunder Award – for those businesses that run a crowdfunding campaign in parallel with their competition entry

Key dates:

Public vote opens: 5 April 2016

Applications close: 10 May 2016

Voting closes: 23 May 2016

Find out more at https://www.vmbvoom.com

Digital vision of future local government – connecting our lives in 2025

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The report , Connected Councils, explores how councils can use digital tools to transform the way they work and save a potential £14.7 billion every year.

Digital technologies, from apps to online platforms, can help councils provide better services for their residents and mobilise communities to work alongside these services, as well as find new ways of collecting and analysing data, which could have a significant impact on the quality of future services.

Through a series of case studies the report imagines what life might be like in 2025 for ‘digital by default’ councils and their citizens – from retirees to young graduates and new parents.

Key Findings

Local government has made huge progress in enabling residents to carry out basic transactions online. But most councils have a long way to go to deliver smooth, frictionless services and fully digitise their back offices. Digitisation isn’t just about developing digital services; depending on the level of ambition, digital tools can help:

  • Save money and deliver better outcomes by intervening earlier and helping people manage their own conditions.
  • Transform the way that councils work internally, commission services and partners, diagnose and solve problems, use public space, and attract talent.
  • Make services smoother and easier to access, more personalised and user-responsive.
  • Put residents at the heart of local problem-solving and decision-making and create an environment which supports businesses to startup and scale.

The 2025 vision

Like the best tech companies, future councils will be lean, agile and data-driven. Siloed services will be replaced with multi-agency teams that form around specific local challenges. A truly mobile workforce has freed up public space. Almost all transactions take place online. Instead of two-dimensional council websites, interactive platforms connect users with third-party apps and services, and stream personalised content on local democracy, jobs and services.

Relational services (such as social care) still rely heavily on face-to-face contact. But digital tools help people to manage their own long-term conditions and connect to a broader network of support, such as peer mentors, health coaches, friends and family, volunteers and group-based activities. Digital technologies have helped councils take a more ambitious approach to place-shaping. A larger share of public contracts go to high-growth SMEs. Councils systematically engage residents in decisions about how services are commissioned, delivered and evaluated.

Read the report in full.

 

Creative Digital & Design – Horizon 2020

Innovate UK have put together a very useful list of upcoming funding calls relating to Horizon 2020 funding. There are also links to other sources of information including events and their Guide to Horizon 2020 and Other InnovateUK_LogoA_Interim_RGBx320govuk[1]European Funding for the Creative Industries.

This information is provided freely to members of the _connect Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) Creative Digital  & Design. There are currently 16 KTNs plus many other groups. Whatever your discipline, there will be a group to which you can contribute and promote your research interests.

Why not take a look and register to receive updates direct to your inbox? 

“Designing ‘Playful’ Business Events” – Dr Phil Crowther (Sheffield Hallam University) visiting BU

Dr Phil Crowther, from Sheffield Hallam University (Sheffield Business School), will be on a short visit to BU where he will meet researchers from the Department of Events and Leisure to exchange and explore potential research opportunities (8th March 2016).

“Designing ‘Playful’ Business Events” is the title of his guest lecture, where Dr Phil Crowther explores the very serious nature of play in the design of business events.

We invite you to join this session, to the limit of seating capacity, on the 8th March 2016, Allesbrook Lecture Hall (Talbot Campus), 1 p.m.

For a little bit more on Dr Phil Crowther, please read below his story in the first person.

Would you like to know more details on this visit or to join us in the research meeting programme, please email Dr Lenia Marques, lmarques@bournemouth.ac.uk .

Phil Crowther

My first degree was in Recreation Management from Loughborough University, graduating in 1995. Since then I have enjoyed a career in recreation / leisure / tourism / event management for eleven years, running cinemas, theme parks, and health and racquet clubs as General Manager.  During this time I had the pleasure of designing and delivering such highlights as film premiers, celebrity birthday parties, and large team building events.  During my industry career I completed a part-time MBA in Executive General Management which was my pathway back into universities. Since then I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching, researching, and delivering continuing professional development (CPD) events and consultancy in the area of Event Management.

My teaching focuses heavily on strategy and events, leading teaching on modules such as Event Policy and Planning, Strategic Event Design, and Strategic Event Creation.  My research focusses specifically upon Marketing Events, part of the Experiential Marketing eruption, and I have published a number of journal papers.  I have recently edited a book entitled Strategic Event Creation with colleagues which sets out an agenda for the practice, and teaching, of events.   Most recently completed my PhD entitled ‘Strategic Application of Marketing Events’ which continues to be my main interest.   

 Beyond that I have two fabulous daughter, a wonderful partner, and two amazing dogs called Baxter and Will.  I also have a passion for running and was most recently, in January this year, running the Hong Kong Marathon in pouring rain.

Call for Ideas – Your view counts!

The European Commission has launched a Call for Ideas for a European Innovation Council to support Europe’s most promising innovators.question mark

Commissioner Moedas launched the Call for ideas at the Science|Business Annual Conference in Brussels. He said that “Europe has excellent science, but we lack disruptive market-creating innovation. This is what is needed to turn our best ideas into new jobs, businesses and opportunities.” While the number of start-ups created in Europe is on a par with competitors such as the United States, Europe lags behind in disruptive innovation and in scaling start-ups into world-beating businesses. A European Innovation Council could contribute to solving this problem.

To find out more and to participate in this survey, please go to the European Innovation Council website, where you can also view background documents and position papers.

The deadline for survey completion in 29 April 2016.

 

Creative England – Interest free business loans now open for applications

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Creative England would  like to hear from creative digital companies who need anything from £50k – £200k in order to grow their business.

Eligible companies include those across content creation, games, tech and digital based in any of the English regions outside of Greater London. The interest-free loan is repaid over 3 years, and must be matched 50:50 with an alternative source of finance.

For more information please read the  FAQ’s and application guidelines.

You can also get in touch with kate.adam@creativeengland.co.uk for any further questions.

If you’re not sure if a Business Loan is quite right for the stage your company is at, then take a look at the  Equity Investment Programme, offering £40k – £100k of equity investment for digital SME’s.

Working with start-ups and small businesses?

Technology in the hands

Innovate UK’s 5 tips to secure funding for start-ups and small businesses

Innovate UK have just launched their essential advice and tips on securing funding. Whether a start-up, small business or SME this video is worth watching. This can be found on you tube and worth bookmarking this for further advice on funding coming soon. Stay tuned, more essential selections videos will be published soon including networking, grants, pitching, business planning and more.

Click here for the video.

Check out the Innovate UK website for competitons and funding calls listed by sector.