Science 2 Business Hub

Through its strong links within the University, the Hub can help regional SMEs gain global business opportunities by encouraging engagement in open innovation, helping to sustain long term relationships with academic institutions and other research establishments and providing access to a variety of resources, including; research, funding and technological advancements.

Key objectives of the hub are to:

• engage with ‘science using’ SMEs and drive up demand for innovation
• provide opportunities for SMEs to share best practice, network and better understand the potential of recent research developments and future global trends
• assist SMEs in identifying their technology needs and source partners from the universities, centres of excellence and research establishments to meet those needs. This will include supporting SMEs to clarify and meet any gaps in skills or knowledge that relate to the identified technology
• assist SMEs in embedding the results of applied research into their business operations, including all aspects of business practice
• support communication channels with and between professional institutions
• promote national initiatives such as Knowledge Transfer Partnerships and Innovation Vouchers
• provide intelligence around the needs of ‘science using’ SMEs and contribute to the development of policy.

The Hub will be active across the whole process sector, with an immediate market need to focus on the speciality chemicals sector. Within this we are keen to focus on a number of high level industry clusters, many of which could offer businesses new, competitive markets to explore.