The University of Nottingham has been granted funding worth a total of £1.2m to help six small and medium sized businesses develop new ideas and technologies.
Secured from the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), the money is for Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) projects with companies in a range of industries.
A UK-wide programme, KTPs taking part in the scheme usually receive up to £120,000 in funding to enable them to work with a University.
Three of the businesses benefitting from the funding are based in the East Midlands. These include PEM (Power Electronic Measurements) of Long Eaton, who specialise in the design and manufacture of wide-bandwidth measuring devices; Delta Rail – based in Derby and the largest signalling control business in the UK and Integrated Transport Planning from Nottingham, a company which specialises in sustainable transport planning and research.
Chris Hewson, Chief Executive of PEM, said: “We were very pleased at how simple The University of Nottingham made the process of applying for the KTPs and to get both projects approved is excellent news. We are now looking forward to progressing these exciting new developments.”
Neil Taylor from Nottingham based Integrated Transport Planning, said: “We were delighted with our successful application with The University of Nottingham for TSB funding for a Knowledge Transfer Partnership to develop the AccessAdvisor web-application, and conduct research into the presentation of map-based ‘Ease-of-access’ data for disabled people. The advice and support we received from the University, and its KTP team really helped us put together a strong application and sound project plan.”
Three businesses from outside the region were also successful in their KTP applications – based in Norwich, Hastings and Birmingham.
Paul Yeomans, KTP Manager at The University of Nottingham, said: “There is a wealth of Knowledge within the UK’s Universities that businesses could be accessing to help them develop cutting edge new products or services and government funding to help them do it.
It’s also encouraging to see a greater uptake from local businesses in the KTP scheme over the past 12 months and internally it’s good to see that academics from across the institution are keen to work with businesses both small and large to help them grow and innovate.
”Dan King, Head of Knowledge Transfer at the University, added: “We are serious about helping local small and medium sized enterprises drive economic growth in their businesses through exploiting our research expertise. We are increasingly working with smaller local businesses through projects such as Knowledge Transfer Partnerships project and several other initiatives which are designed to help them become more innovative and improve their competitiveness through developing and expanding their products and services.”
