The Institute of Digital Innovation (IDI) embodies a new kind of regeneration project that puts high-quality research alongside business to build a high-growth economic base.
This is the goal not just of the University of Teesside, but also of its partners Middlesbrough Council, Tees Valley Unlimited and regional development agency One NorthEast.
It’s a partnership that puts the University right at the heart of one of the most fertile digital and creative industry clusters in the UK.
For us, it’s an ideal position. The IDI means that our best postgraduates can hone their professional and work-based skills on challenging projects with industry. It means our talented young companies can thrive in a cutting-edge environment. And it means that established companies can work with our research teams to develop world-class digital technology products and recruit their people from our unique talent pool.
It all adds up to a coherent vision of a University using its knowledge and resources to support the region – putting our postgraduates and researchers alongside those supporting and nurturing young companies. It is what distinguishes our regeneration initiative from so many others and why our clear strategy is shared by our partners. They have seen the potential of the way we are creating digital innovation and given us their full support, and we in turn are giving our support to the development of the BoHo zone in Middlesbrough to help attract digital companies to come and grow in the region.
The foundations for DigitalCity were already there before the completion of the impressive Phoenix Building which will be the nerve centre for the IDI.
Our researchers are harnessing all aspects of digital innovation to support fields as varied as the construction industry, medical imaging and interactive storytelling. And the far-sighted DigitalCity Fellowships have been encouraging talented graduates from across the region to develop new ideas on our Teesside campus, many of them launching their own companies with the help of the University’s graduate enterprise scheme.
So while the IDI is based in a fantastic highquality new building, we hope it becomes more than just the cement holding DigitalCity together.
We see it as the mechanism to promote and encourage more collaboration and innovation, such as the pioneering research by our Centre for Construction Innovation led by Professor Nashwan Dawood. This was highlighted on the government’s Number 10 website as an excellent example of applied research being taken up by industry.
There are many other examples of this approach including the work of d|lab, our centre for research, development and innovation in design. Another highlighted in this magazine is the research led by Professor Marc Cavazza which is pushing at the frontiers of virtual reality for art and entertainment. Work of this calibre will be based within the IDI.
To give strategic direction to the IDI, we have appointed Dr Jim TerKeurst to lead the Institute. Jim has the respect and experience of the digital industries to take our ambitious plans forward. He has worked both within a research environment and as an entrepreneur, in the United States, Europe and the Far East, and we are delighted he has taken the helm of the IDI. We’re confident that with the full and active support of so many key players in the region, we can help deliver our key goal of generating and sustaining a thriving cluster of digital and creative industries, making the Tees Valley once again the by-word for world-class creativity and innovation.