University of York wins £2.4m for innovation
Posted on 15 June 2004
At its core will be a team of business development managers, each focused on an industry sector that maps on to the University’s research strengths. These will cover Health and Medicine, Creative Media, Arts and Heritage, Life Sciences, IT and Communications and Chemistry, Physical Sciences and Engineering.
The Government scheme awards £185million in total to support knowledge transfer from universities to business and the wider community.This is part of its drive to boost the UK's innovation performance and productivity.
The University of York unit will provide intellectual property management and business support, identify applied research opportunities, and forge partnerships with industry and regional organisations.
The award, to last from August 2004 to August 2006, builds on the achievements of HEROBC (Higher Education Reach Out to Business and the Community) and HEIF funding projects.
The business development managers will also co-ordinate and market the University's Continuing Professional Development programmes and develop its established student enterprise training programmes.
Notes to editors:
- The £185 million awards will help English universities and colleges across the country to carry out a range of knowledge transfer-related activities. These include:
- promoting networking between universities and businesses
- developing the infrastructure and capability to transfer knowledge from universities into business and the community
- seed funding to provide venture capital for early stage exploitation of ideas
- contributing specialised knowledge to regeneration programmes
- a network of 22 new centres for knowledge exchange activity
- entrepreneurship training and continued professional development for students and academics.
- The HEIF2 awards are sponsored by the DTI, DfES and HEFCE.
- The Government has consolidated HEIF as a permanent third stream of funding for universities in England, alongside the funding they receive for (1) teaching and (2) research, to promote knowledge transfer. A complete list of awards is available on the HEFCE web site www.hefce.ac.uk under ‘Business and the community'