I am the new Contracts and Compliance Officer for the External Projects Team in Enterprise and Commercial Development (taking over the role from Chris Kenning), and will be based in the Business Village in Stoke.

Prior to working in the Higher Education sector, I worked as a paralegal at a law firm in Manchester, specialising in Corporate Recovery and Insolvency. More recently, I worked in the Contracts Unit in Research and Enterprise Services at Keele University, dealing with research and enterprise related contracts, and ensuring the protection of the University’s interests.

I have experience in drafting and reviewing contracts which include (but not limited to):

• Collaboration Agreements
• Confidentiality Agreement
• Consultancy Agreements
• Memorandums of Association
• Material Transfer Agreements
• Studentships
• CPD Agreements
• Research Agreements
• Grant Funding Agreements
• Study Abroad Agreements

I will be reviewing outstanding agreements, as well as welcoming any new contracts. Please do let me know if anything requires immediate attention, and I will ensure I get back to you as soon as I can.

I am looking forward to meeting and working with the team at Staffordshire University.

Should you require any assistance, please call me on ext. 4168 or email me: Samantha.Wong@staffs.ac.uk. Alternatively, I am more than happy to meet you to discuss new or existing agreements, or opportunities to work together in the near future.

The Department for Education (DfE) is responsible for education and children’s services in England. It works to achieve a highly educated society in which opportunity is equal for children and young people, no matter what their background or family circumstances.  DfE is a ministerial department, supported by 9 agencies and public bodies.

Whilst there are a number of market-led websites and apps that help parents to find suitable childcare, none has achieved the status of “the place to go” and none provide comprehensive information about the entire range of childcare options (e.g. often they focus just on child-minders or nurseries).

In this competition, DfE is seeking the development of a new, engaging and innovative solution which provides accurate information about childcare provision for parents. The solution will enable parents to make informed decisions about what childcare is best for their children, taking into account a wide range of factors.  It should be easy to use and provide timely, accurate data.  DfE, supported by Innovate UK is using Phase 2 of the SBRI process to support the prototype development of selected proposed solutions.  A total of up to £200k (inc VAT) is allocated to this Phase 2 only competition.

DfE intends holding a high profile briefing event for potential applicants in mid to late February.  Applicants and potential developers should be willing to participate fully at the event and as the competition progresses.

 How to apply

All bids should be made using the Application Form; instructions on how to access this document and other competition material are available from https://interact.innovateuk.org/childcare-provision-for-parents

If you are interested in applying and require support please contact Naomi Arblaster in Enterprise & Commercial Development: 01785 353519, n.arblaster@staffs.ac.uk

The ‘Next Generation Predictive Policing Project’ is a new national competition that will be launched by South Wales Police and Gwent Police on Monday 19^th January2015 to identify and develop innovative solutions that maximise the effectiveness of resources and enhance the service provided to the communities of Southern Wales.

This competition is jointly funded by the Police Forces, Welsh Government and Innovate UK and has been run by South Wales Police as part of the Fusion Programme, which aims to change policing through the innovative and dynamic use of technology.

The competition will seek to develop innovative solutions that utilise predictive analytic tools, methods and processes to integrate, interpret, visualise and forecast using existing and future police and partner data sets in order to assist in delivering the following outcomes:

• Improved prevention, detection and disruption of criminal activity and disorder.
• More efficient use of staff and resources to ensure we have the right people in the right place, at the right time.
• Improved planning and forecasting to ensure best value is obtained from our staff and resources.
• Provide greater information and intelligence to front line officers enabling them to provide an improved and more efficient service to the public of Southern Wales.
• An improvement in public confidence and customer satisfaction for the local communities we police.

Organisations will be invited to compete for a share of a total £250,000 fund for the further development and commercialisation of innovative technologies, processes and business models.

The competition opens on Monday 19th January, with a briefing event for interested parties being run on Wednesday 4th February at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

Click here for more information

https://interact.innovateuk.org/competition-display-page/-/asset_publisher/RqEt2AKmEBhi/content/next-generation-predictive-policing?p_p_auth=vJ7xy7ny

If you are interested and require support please contact Naomi Arblaster in Enterprise & Commercial Development: 01785 353519, n.arblaster@staffs.ac.uk

To mark its tenth anniversary in 2015, the AHRC is looking to extend its partnership with Cheltenham Festivals by inviting applications from researchers to present their research at one of a series of four engaging public events at the Times Cheltenham Science Festival and the Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival in 2015. One event will run at the Science Festival, and three at the Literature Festival.

Cheltenham Festivals is the charitable organisation behind the town’s internationally acclaimed Jazz (opens in a new window), Science (opens in a new window), Music (opens in a new window) and Literature (opens in a new window) Festivals. Through cutting edge and creative programming, Cheltenham’s four festivals have provided a platform for debate and commentary from writers, performers, scientists, musicians and scholars across the world.

Up to twenty successful applicants will have a chance to develop their event ideas with experienced Cheltenham Festival producers and members of the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement team at a dedicated workshop. Of these, up to four will have the chance to hold their event at one of the Festivals.

A workshop held on 23rd February 2015 will focus on the Science and Literature festivals. The selected researchers will benefit from a unique opportunity to work closely with the Cheltenham Festival producers to create interactive and engaging events, invite high profile speakers, where relevant, and ultimately share their research with a public audience.

We welcome applications from individual researchers or project teams with one lead applicant, working in all areas of the arts and humanities. The topics of the proposed events should fall within one of the disciplines within the AHRC’s remit.

The aim of the scheme is to provide a development opportunity for researchers to cultivate the skills to communicate their research findings to those outside the academic community. The scheme aims to find academics that can bring the best of the latest research to life to a broad audience in an interactive and engaging manner.

Applications should demonstrate an engaging and stimulating event idea but also demonstrate an ability to present in an accessible and refreshing manner, with awareness of a festival audience.

Further information is available in the call document (PDF 92KB, opens in a new window). Please read this carefully before submitting an application.

International Conference on Innovation Through Knowledge Transfer 2015 15th-17th April 2015 at Staffordshire University http://inkt15.innovationkt.org/ 

Paper submission is now live! Submit your papers here before 19 January 2015 to present and publish your paper at the conference: http://inkt15.innovationkt.org/prose.php

InnovationKT15 will be of interest to all knowledge professionals – those academics, business people, managers and researchers working with innovation, enterprise, knowledge transfer, exchange and sharing. Featuring world-class speakers, oral presentation sessions and interactive workshops, the InnovationKT 2015 conference will provide an excellent opportunity to publish a paper in journal and book form, and at the same time disseminate, share and discuss the impact of university-business and business-business interactions.

There will be an Innovation Tour at the Emma Bridgewater factory and a talk at the conference itself plus a plenary session entitled ‘Staffordshire Innovation Forum’ which will consist of case studies and papers from Staffordshire University and the local area.

Papers on relevant topics are invited to be evaluated for the conference under peer-review and if accepted, published in the proceedings.

Conference Scope

InnovationKT15 covers the following topics (although this list is not intended to be exhaustive):

• Case studies of successful university-business
• Examples of best practice in respect of innovation and knowledge transfer from practitioners
•  Innovative innovation and knowledge transfer mechanisms
• The outcomes and results of university-business and business-business projects
• Management of projects and development of applicable policy

Applicable knowledge transfer mechanisms and paradigms include, but are not limited to:

• The UK Technology Strategy Board (TSB) Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) product
• Spin-out companies
• Incubators and entrepreneur schemes
• University-industry contracts and consultancy
• Licensing of university-originated intellectual property
• Other modes of knowledge transfer and technology transfer, e.g. work-based learning projects
• The knowledge transfer, knowledge origination and knowledge exchange process

Invited Sessions

An invited session consists of a presentation session of 6 to 12 or more papers on a specific conference topic, organised as half or full day mini-conference. We invite senior specialists who have an interest in a specific conference topic to take responsibility for an invited session, gathering papers from a range of research expertise around the world.

If you would like to arrange an Invited Session please contact: admin@kesinternational.org

Dates & Deadlines

Submission of Papers: 19 Jan 2015

Notification of Acceptance: 16 Feb 2015 Upload of Files for Programme / Proceedings: 16 March 2015

Early Registration Deadline: 1 March 2015

All deadlines are provisional and subject to change.

Location

The collaboration between Staffordshire University and UK partners includes excellent relationships with local and national companies as well as 17 further education colleges plus charitable organisations such as the Institute for Children, Youth and Mission and Oasis College.

Further information

For general enquiries email IKT at: contact@innovationkt.org. You can also follow  @IKT_Talk and @KESIntl on Twitter for updates.

Innovate UK (formerly the Technology Strategy Board) has announced the investment of up to £1m in Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) in the area of ‘user experience‘ (UX) to encourage new, enhanced forms of interaction between computing systems and the people who use them.   Proposals may address technologies that contribute to these new forms, such as sensing information about the user, or those that improve specific types of experience, such as mobile and wearable devices. Examples include but are not limited to:

• Sensors and interactions: eye tracking, emotion-sensing, advanced gesture tracking, haptic interfaces, expression analysis, voice/speech interaction.
• Wearable technology: devices/clothing worn outside or on the body, in contact with the skin or embedded within the body.
• Mobile user experience: supporting natural and easy interactions on the move
• Multiple device user experience: how seamless co-operation among various devices can enhance the user experience.
• Multi-disciplinary approaches: methods and tools to involve non-ICT experts in user experience design, including artists, anthropologists and psychologists.
• Brain-controlled computing: practicality – such as when user is wearing protective headgear, such as in sport, construction and cycling.
• Combinations of emerging technologies: short-range, ad-hoc wireless technologies or application performance management tools.

If you’d like to explore the eligibility of any project ideas you might have, please call Dominic Collins (01785 353404) or Susan Semple (01785 253498) in Enterprise & Commercial Development.

Further information about the call is available at: http://bit.ly/1wwb2hD

… and the full briefing document can be found at: http://bit.ly/1EAnE9N

This call closes on April 15th 2015.

InnovationKT 2015  – the ‘International Conference on Innovation Through Knowledge Transfer’ is to be hosted by Staffordshire University on its Stoke-on-Trent campus between the 15th and 17th April, and chaired by the Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Sciences’ Dr Matthew Hocking.

InnovationKT 2015 will be of interest to all knowledge transfer professionals – those academics, business people, managers and researchers working with innovation, enterprise, knowledge transfer, exchange and sharing.

Featuring world-class speakers, oral presentation sessions and interactive workshops, the InnovationKT 2015 conference will provide an excellent opportunity to publish a paper in journal and book form, and at the same time disseminate, share and discuss the impact of university-business and business-business interactions.

Papers on relevant topics are invited to be evaluated for the conference under peer-review and if accepted, published in the proceedings. Full papers will be presented and appear in a special edition of ‘InImpact: The Journal of Innovation Impact’ after the conference.

Full details of how to submit papers are available at: http://inkt15.innovationkt.org/submission.php

Conference Scope

InnovationKT 2015 covers the following topics (although this list is not intended to be exhaustive):

• Case studies of successful university-business
• Examples of best practice in respect of innovation and knowledge transfer from practitioners
• Innovative innovation and knowledge transfer mechanisms
• The outcomes and results of university-business and business-business projects
• Management of projects and development of applicable policy

Applicable knowledge transfer mechanisms and paradigms include, but are not limited to:

•  The UK Technology Strategy Board (TSB) Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) product
• Spin-out companies
• Incubators and entrepreneur schemes
• University-industry contracts and consultancy
• Licensing of university-originated intellectual property
• Other modes of knowledge transfer and technology transfer, e.g. work-based learning projects
• The knowledge transfer, knowledge origination and knowledge exchange process

Invited Sessions

An invited session consists of a presentation session of 6 to 12 or more papers on a specific conference topic, organised as half or full day mini-conference. We invite senior specialists who have an interest in a specific conference topic to take responsibility for an invited session, gathering papers from a range of research expertise around the world.

If you would like to arrange an Invited Session please contact: admin@kesinternational.org

 Dates & Deadlines

Submission of Papers: 19 Jan 2015

Notification of Acceptance: 16 Feb 2015 Upload of Files for Programme / Proceedings: 16 March 2015

Early Registration Deadline: 1 March 2015

All deadlines are provisional and subject to change.

Further information

For further information on InnovationKT 2015 visit the conference website: http://inkt15.innovationkt.org/index.php

Or contact Dr Matthew Hocking: M.Hocking@staffs.ac.uk , Tel: 01785 353833

Full details of how to submit papers are available at:http://inkt15.innovationkt.org/submission.php

For general enquiries email IKT at: contact@innovationkt.org. You can also follow  @IKT_Talk and @KESIntl on Twitter for updates.