News
Embargo until 2 January 2008
Extra Innovation Funding for Midlands Business
28/12/07
Aston University, organisers of the successful INDEX (INnovation Delivers Expansion) programme, which earlier in the year allocated £120,000 worth of vouchers to 40 local SMEs to buy in academic support for innovation has announced its second round of vouchers for January 2008.
John Bailey, Pro–Vice Chancellor of Knowledge Transfer at the University said “I’m delighted that we have been able to obtain funding from Advantage West Midlands for this second round and that many more businesses will benefit.”
The first round of vouchers, each worth £3000, proved a huge success and were distributed to a wide variety of businesses from the region who discovered the advantages that external thought and application can bring. Many of the SMEs who were awarded vouchers are still working hard with academics, developing their innovative projects. One business that has completed the programme has been able to quantify that a planned five-year, £1m project has already had up to a year lopped off its development time.”
Dr Judy Scully of Aston Business School who are coordinating this collaboration between the 13 Higher Education establishments in the Midlands region said “We set out to develop relationships between small medium enterprises and universities, to demonstrate that businesses can really benefit by choosing academic expertise form any of the universities in the West Midlands.
Coventry based GPS Vision who works with clients to increase return on investment from training and people development activities were allocated one of the first INDEX vouchers, using it to produce a feasibility study and to develop system requirements for bespoke software that will assist in an online evaluation package.
Patrick Taggart a director of GPS Vision said “Without the INDEX programme, we probably wouldn’t have thought about approaching a university for input, and would have gone straight to commercial software developers. The work we have done with our voucher has allowed us define our requirements so precisely that we are able to put the project directly out to tender. This has cut development time drastically with benefits far beyond the £3000 face value of the voucher. It has also had the added benefit of developing a relationship that we hope will continue into the future.”
Any Midlands based business with up to 250 employees is able to apply for a voucher. Information and applications are all online at www.indexvouchers.org between January 2nd and January 22nd 2008. The application form just requires contact details and an outline of the project that requires innovation. Vouchers are awarded on a lottery basis in the interests of fairness. The first round attracted applications from around 200 eligible businesses. Assistance is also available from the INDEX helpline on 0121 204 3883 or e-mail enquiries@indexvouchers.org
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