Category / innovation

SMART awards – Support for innovative SMEs

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team

InnovateUK_LogoA_Interim_RGBx320govuk[1]
SMART  is a grant scheme which offers funding to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to engage in R&D projects in the strategically important areas of science, engineering and technology, from which successful new products, processes and services could emerge.
The scheme supports SMEs carrying out R&D which offers potentially significant rewards and that could stimulate UK economic growth.
Three types of grant are available:
  • Proof of market
  • Proof of concept
  • Development of prototype.
Any UK SME undertaking research and development may apply; applications are accepted on a rolling basis for assessment by independent experts.
 This call closes on 26 November 2015 at 12.00.

KTP Surgery this Friday!

BU research, Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, Knowledge Transfer Partnership

The Innovate UK KTP Advisor for our region will be on campus this Friday from 10am-12pm.

Each appointment will be 20 minutes long.

If you would like to make an appointment to talk through any KTP ideas/potential projects or existing KTP, please contact Rachel Clarke, KE Adviser (KTP) on 01202 961347 or email clarker@bournemouth.ac.uk 

If you miss this Surgery, the next one will be on Friday 20th November from 10am-12pm.

KTP@40-block-logo

Innovate UK 2015

Business Engagement, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team, Knowledge Transfer

Innovate 2011v4
Innovate 2015 is a two day global spotlight on innovation. You will be able to meet inventive and creative companies, explore innovative ideas, discover new export opportunities and hear from original thinkers . It’s the one event that brings together the research base, business, UK and international investors,international buyers from overseas markets and government organisations, to help fund and support innovative ideas.
  • Day 1 will focus on the wide range of funding and support opportunities available and help in making valuable connections for UK businesses to grow on a global scale.
  • Day 2 will focus on the innovation capabilities of the UK, the vast array of regional funding opportunities and support on offer and help with making the right connections for UK businesses to succeed and grow.

Innovate UK is taking place on 9 and 10 November in central London.

Click here for more information including registration.

Are you working in knowledge exchange, knowledge tansfer and/or enterprise ?

BU research, Business Engagement, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team, Knowledge Transfer

PraxisUnico

Bournemouth University is a member of PraxisUnico. This membership is for the whole organisation – colleagues across the University will find it helpful to sign up to receive the  mailing list to have the NewsUpdate sent to your inbox  (news and information from across the sector, distributed every month to over 5000 individuals around the world). Other information channels include the  website, Blog and Twitter feeds of interest.

PraxisUnico is responsible for the range of activities which facilitate the commercialisation of university, public sector and charity based research.  The PraxisUnico website acts to signpost information relating to UK KT activity, expertise, success and impact – it gives Members a platform to promote to a range of stakeholders including government, industry, funders and overseas organisations – all of whom are regular visitors to the PraxisUnico website (and recipients of  wider communications) as a valued information source.

As a member organisation BU can advertise items on  the  website free of charge – a great way to share latest news, achievements and job opportunities!  Relevant content is also included in the  NewsUpdate emails.  Please send your content to website@praxisunico.org.uk.  The website also features various a range of practical tools and resources for those working within the commercialisation profession, key resources are restricted to members only.

The annual conference will take place in Stratford-upon-Avon, 15-17 June, registration will open in the New Year.

Individuals from BU  can also get involved as a volunteer by joining committees, contributing to workshops or delivering training – if this is of interest please let me know jcodling@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

Creative, Digital, Design – October briefing now live !

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team

 

theme - creative-digital

This is a monthly publication that provides a digest of useful information about funding, financing, support and events to assist creative, digital and design businesses with their innovation and growth strategies.

You can sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox or alternatively follow the Knowledge Transfer Network group on social media.

This is a great way to get a quick heads up on what is happening in these sectors with links to further information.

Click here for more information.

 

 

Latest funding programmes: innovation in urban spaces, IoT security, quantified self and more

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team, Knowledge Transfer

knowledge_transfer_networks

Check out the latest funding opportuntities, events and news within these sectors and more.

Knowledge Transfer Networks have been set up to connect people. Aiming to speed up innovation , solve problems and find markets for new ideas.

Established to foster better collaboration between science, creativity and business, KTN has specialist teams covering all sectors of the economy – from defence and aerospace to the creative industries, the built environment to biotechnology and robotics. KTN has helped thousands of businesses secure funding to drive innovation. And we support them through their business cycle to see that investment through to success.

Why not sign up to receive information relevant to your area of interest and research.

Check out the website for more information. 

Team BU develop game based app in just 24 hours

innovation, PG research

photoWell done Team BU (Chi Zhang, Erika Borkoles, Sarah Collard, Gary Head, Barry Squires and Clare Farrance) for taking part in the Sport England hackathon* last weekend. We had just 24 hours to develop our concept and build a prototype app to help 18-25 year olds become more physically active.

We developed a location based game app called ‘Nudge’ and incorporated social gamification strategies to encourage sustained physical activity adherence. We also sought strategies to help those who are already active in this age group encourage their inactive peers to participate.

The hackathon was a great experience and an excellent opportunity to collaborate across BU faculties and services.

A special mention needs to go to Chi who programmed through the night to make sure we had a working prototype. Hiring an experienced flutter developer can save you a lot of time and money and enable developers to solve complex problems at the last minute.

The winning team will be announced at the Sports Technology Awards in April 2016 and awarded a bursary of £10,000 to help them build the app.

Well done Team BU and fingers crossed for next April!

 

* A hackathon is a portmanteau of the words “hack” and “marathon”, where “hack” is used in the sense of exploratory programming.

The value of university-business collaborations to the UK economy

Business Engagement, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team

 

Technology in the hands

 

As organisations make submissions to the government’s Comprehensive Spending Review 2015, Director for Employment & Skills at CBI, Neil Carberry, outlines the case for investment in universities.

Productivity levels and skills are considered  two of the greatest challenges. This is where universities and their graduates – and their relationship with UK business – come in.

The latest CBI/Pearson Education and Skills Survey, Inspiring Growth, illustrates the magnitude of the skills emergency. Two out of three businesses surveyed expect their need for staff with higher level skills to grow in the years ahead, but more than half of them fear that they will not be able to access enough workers with the required skills. Even more disturbingly, it is the high-growth, high-value, high-potential sectors which are under most pressure – including construction, manufacturing, science, engineering and technology.

UK productivity has for a long time lagged behind most other developed countries. There are a number of causes, including low skills levels in many sectors, but a fundamental driver of productivity growth is innovation, where the UK is held back by low levels of public and private investment and an unbalanced ecosystem in which the infrastructure for supporting commercial innovation does not match the world-class research base.

Click here to read the full blog post.

http://blog.universitiesuk.ac.uk/2015/09/22/the-value-of-university-business-collaborations-to-uk-economy/

 

SMART awards – Support for innovative SMEs

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team

InnovateUK_LogoA_Interim_RGBx320govuk[1]
SMART  is a grant scheme which offers funding to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to engage in R&D projects in the strategically important areas of science, engineering and technology, from which successful new products, processes and services could emerge.
The scheme supports SMEs carrying out R&D which offers potentially significant rewards and that could stimulate UK economic growth.
Three types of grant are available:
  • Proof of market
  • Proof of concept
  • Development of prototype.
Any UK SME undertaking research and development may apply; applications are accepted on a rolling basis for assessment by independent experts.
 This call closes on 26 November 2015 at 12.00.

Software Verification & Validation for Complex Systems competition

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team, Knowledge Transfer

Software verification

Software Verification & Validation for Complex Systems competition has just launched with £580,000 funding available.

Innovate UK and Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) are to invest up to £580,000 in technical feasibility studies to stimulate innovation throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC) while focusing on the verification and validation* (V&V) of two classes of complex systems: cyber physical systems (CPS) and systems with emergent behaviours.

This competition encourages businesses to develop appropriate ‘links’ between the behaviour of a system in the physical world and the software implementing its planned interactions. It also seeks to stimulate development of new engineering methods for systems in which a machine – rather than a human user or operator – drives the decision- making process. Such systems can be trained to recognise complex patterns and to make intelligent decisions based on existing data. They are starting to be used in sectors such as automated and autonomous vehicles, and robotics and autonomous systems (RAS). Our aim is to ensure that small and micro businesses in the UK further develop their early capabilities in this area.

Projects are open to companies of any size, but must be led by a small or micro company, working in collaboration with one or more business or research partners.

View all details.

NERC Green Infrastructure Innovation Projects Call

Funding opportunities, innovation, Research news

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The Environment Agency has indicated that they would welcome academic partners to work with them on the priorities in their Working with Natural Processes Research Framework. Details are at the foot of the call webpage http://www.nerc.ac.uk/innovation/activities/infrastructure/green-iip-call/

The evidence needs for Defra, Natural England and the JNCC are also available on the web page.

Please note that this call has £150k for short feasibility projects and internships completing before 31 March 2016 as well as for longer term projects of up to £125K at 80% FEC in value.

Closing Date 4pm 22 October 2015.

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.

Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) – latest calls

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team, Knowledge Transfer

SBRI

 

The Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) is a well established process to connect public sector challenges with innovative ideas from industry, supporting companies to generate economic growth and enabling improvement in achieving government objectives.

SBRI provides innovative solutions to challenges faced by the public sector, leading to better public services and improved efficiency and effectiveness. It generates new business opportunities for companies, provides small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) a route to market for their ideas and bridges the seed funding gap experienced by many early stage companies. It supports economic growth and enables the development of innovative products and services through the public procurement of research and development (R&D).

The following is the list of recently opened & upcoming SBRI funding competitions.

Investigative imaging in the 21st century: the future in diagnosing spinal pain?

BU research, innovation, PG research, Research communication, Research themes

British Chiropractic Association Autumn Conference 2015, Bournemouth

I was delighted to have been invited to speak at the British Chiropractic Association’s Autumn Conference 2015, at the Marriot hotel, Bournemouth, perfectly situated to watch the sun glistening on the Channel. The beautiful weather was fitting for a particularly celebratory occasion with chiropractors travelling from all over the world to gather and celebrate 90 years of the BCA and 50 years of AECC. To be included as a speaker alongside some of the top researchers in the musculoskeletal field, and sharing the stage with no less than Professor Alan Breen, was slightly nerve-racking but also a very great honour.

Look Inside: MRI and quantitative fluoroscopy in the future

Photo taken by Stephen Perle DC

Photo taken by Stephen Perle DC

 

Alan Breen first started experimenting with what is now known as quantitative fluoroscopy (QF), taking measurements from motion x-rays, in the 1980s but it was not until the 2000s that computing power was sufficient to make this a reality. QF has since been found to be accurate and reliable in the measurement of inter-vertebral motion in both the cervical (my PhD work) and lumbar spines, and has been commercialised in the United States. It should start appearing in European hospitals within the next few years – watch this space. What will be possible with QF is a more accurate measurement of spinal stability to better inform surgical decisions and also the potential to better guide conservative treatment. The examples given from a case series during the presentation included showing that suspected lumbar instability is often not confirmed (therefore the potential to avoid unnecessary fusion surgery) and where it is present there is perhaps an increased chance of good surgical outcomes. Also, manipulation/mobilisation might be better targeted at identified segmental restrictions, and exercise therapy better directed where hypermobile or lax joint motion is present.

Alan’s part of the presentation included discussing what was possible with an open-MRI. Aside it being preferable for claustrophobic patients, the ability to image patients weight-bearing has meant the identification of disc hernia in some patients that would have been missed if imaged lying-down, therefore open-MRI is likely to play an important role in improving the diagnosis of persistent radicular pain. He also touched on diagnostic ultrasound which is showing value particularly in the diagnosis of soft-tissue injury of the extremities.

We are only at the beginning of finding out if the potential of QF (and other imaging techniques) will be fully realised, that of improved outcomes for patients with neck and back pain. Its use, like that of MRI, is likely to be restricted to those patients with particularly problematic spinal pain, but it (and open-MRI/diagnostic ultrasound) is a welcome addition to the diagnostic armamentarium of the chiropractor and other musculoskeletal professionals. And it was developed, not by a massive multinational corporation, but by a member of the BCA at AECC, a partner college of BU. Now that is worth celebrating.

Dr Jonathan (Jonny) Branney
Lecturer in Adult Nursing
Faculty of Health and Social Sciences

NB: This is a truncated version of a longer blog that can be found here

EU funding opportunity – are you working with SMEs ?

Business Engagement, EU, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange

 

 

 

EU heart

Open call to SMEs and new entrants for industrial experiments Digital Agenda for Europe

The Digital Agenda for Europe will shortly be inviting applications for its second open call to SMEs and new entrants for industrial experiments. The call will open on 28 October 2015 and the closing date is 3 December 2015.  This call aims to initiate new business and innovation opportunities between SMEs and new entrants, major cyber physical system-platform providers, and competence centres. The maximum European Commission contribution for industrial experiments per applicant is €150,000. The funding rate is 70 per cent. The maximum duration of industrial experiment is 18 months.

For more information:

https://www.eurocps.org/innovators-projects/open-calls/

 

 

£2.5m funding for Advancing the commercial applications of graphene

Funding opportunities, innovation

InnovateUK_LogoA_Interim_RGBx320govuk[1]

Innovate UK and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) are investing up to £2.5 million in technical feasibility studies to target the applications of graphene with the greatest commercial potential.

More information on this competition.

Competition briefing & other supporting events:

Several briefing & consortium building events are being held  for this competition. In addition to learning more about the competition and scope, and meeting others working in the graphene industry, you will have the opportunity to pitch for collaborators. You are strongly encouraged to attend one or more of these events.

Event    Date   Location   Link to register 
Competition briefing event 8th September Cardiff Register here
Competition briefing event 23rd September London Register here
Competition briefing event 7th October Newcastle Register here

In addition to  Venturefest Manchester on 22 September a short briefing session on this competition will be given at the graphene breakfast meeting.

Queries

For queries about this competition, please contact support@innovateuk.gov.uk

 

 

Funding available to support R&D – science, engineering and technology

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team

Technology in the hands
SMART is a grant scheme which offers funding to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to engage in R&D projects in the strategically important areas of science, engineering and technology, from which successful new products, processes and services could emerge.
The scheme supports SMEs carrying out R&D which offers potentially significant rewards and that could stimulate UK economic growth.
Three types of grant are available:
  • Proof of market
  • Proof of concept
  • Development of prototype.
Any UK SME undertaking research and development may apply; applications are accepted on a rolling basis for assessment by independent experts.

Is the UK good enough at commercialising innovation?

Business Engagement, innovation

Innovate 2011v4A recent edition of the FT (Financial Times) examined a contentious topic: that the UK is not very good at commercialising the innovations that its universities and startups create. A comment from Hanadi Jabado, who directs a start-up accelerator at Cambridge university’s Judge Business School, sums up the issue under debate: “The UK leads the world in terms of research but if you look at the commercialisation of innovation, the UK lags behind. What we seem to be doing is to develop a concept and then sell it to international companies to optimise. We’re preparing the lunch, we’re cooking the lunch, but someone else is eating the lunch.”

Are we doing enough? Are traditional methods of evaluating the commercialisation of innovation no longer valid? And what more could be done? Read the article in full.