Pioneers into Practice – funding available

Posted on February 25, 2014 by Esther KNIGHT

The Climate KIC programme is going from strength to strength. It is now Europe’s biggest trans-national project focused on climate change with a budget in 2014 of €76 million.

One big part of the activities is Pioneers into Practice, the unique professional development programme open to practitioners of all ages and backgrounds which provides two one month placement opportunities, three workshops with Dutch specialists in transitions thinking and a place at the annual Innovation Festival, this year in Valencia. With all the costs up to €8,000 covered.

The call for people to both participate in this year’s programme and to be a host is now open. Forms can be obtained from the link below.

This is a great opportunity

http://www.innovationbham.com/projects/pioneers-into-practice/2014-programme/

Speed Plus: for starting business and supporting business growth

Posted on February 19, 2014 by ck7

Please note the following Speed Plus opportunities for graduates:

If you know (students graduating this year, graduates from any year, staff or other ‘associates’ of Staffordshire University) who are interested in starting their own business and looking for dedicated support and business grants then apply NOW for the next SpeedPlus intake.

Speed Plus is a business support programme for graduates, alumni and associates of the University which provides, training, mentoring, advice and guidance on any aspect of starting a business, self-employment, freelancing and commissioning. There is also financial assistance for everybody on the programme.

Please find further information on the following link:
(http://www.beinspiredatstaffs.co.uk/home/Speed-plus-business-startup/ ).

Please feel free to forward this to anyone who might be interested in applying. The application closing date is 3rd March 2014.

An application form can be found on the following link, but you can also download it from the website http://www.beinspiredatstaffs.co.uk/home/apply-now/

Interviews for the programme will take place during the week of 7th to 11th April with induction and training being held on 28th, 29th April and 5th May 2014.

Should you require any further information or advice on completing the application form please feel free to contact the BeInspired office below:

Kind Regards,

It only takes one idea, one second in time, one friend, one dream, one leap of faith, to change everything, forever. Just one!……Yet eternity lies in the palm of your hand¬¬¬.
________________________________________________________________________________________
be Inspired Team
Faculty of Business, Education and Law,
Staffordshire University,
K166 The Octagon, Beaconside,
Stafford, ST18 0AD.
01785 353809 Direct | 07825 979278 Mobile
dot@staffs.ac.uk
 www.beinspiredatstaffs.co.uk / www.staffs.ac.uk/business

SPEED Plus is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund

Speed Plus Business Start-Up Programme.
This programme is aimed at graduates, alumni and associates of the University who wish to start up their own business or freelance. Benefits include: Business consultants, business training, business clubs, networking opportunities and financial support. For more information contact
Dorota Wiernikowska; dot@staffs.ac.uk; 01785 353809; www.beinspiredatstaffs.co.uk

Innovation Grants for Parkinson’s

Posted on February 12, 2014 by Holly Hoar

Parkinson’s UK has three funding calls over the year open to their innovation fund. They are interested in the healthcare services provided to people with Parkinson’s, this sounds like a good fit to some of the work areas within the Faculty of Health. As far as I am aware this is not a fund the University has gone for before, so it may be an interesting one to explore.

Funding Body: Parkinsons UK

Scheme: Innovation Grants

Overview: These support high-risk, high-reward research with focus on the causes, treatment and cure of Parkinson’s.

Innovative research might include:

•examining the delivery of healthcare services to people with Parkinson’s;

•exploring bold new ideas that could lay the foundations for bigger studies in the future;

•developing practical improvements for the lives of people with Parkinson’s and their carers.

Research proposals must have a solid rationale, but do not require a significant level of preliminary data.

Applications are encouraged from basic scientists, clinicians and healthcare professionals, including physiotherapists, speech and language therapists, alternative therapists, nurses and practitioners. Grants are tenable at universities, research institutions or hospital trusts.

Budget: Grants are worth up to £35,000 for a maximum of 12 months.

Deadlines: 26 March 2014, 14 May 2014 and 10 September 2014

Further Information: http://www.parkinsons.org.uk/content/innovation-grants

HEIF call open

Posted on February 3, 2014 by ejd2

Enterprise and Commercial Development have opened a call for Continuous Improvement projects under our Higher Education Innovation Funding programme. The ‘Continuous Improvement’ themed call is designed to support innovative projects, collaborations with companies and cross faculty working.

For this call we are inviting applications for projects in the areas of Energy/Low Carbon and Health and wellbeing. Applications can be submitted from the 27th Jan – 28th Feb 2013.

Please contact Alex Harvey, HEIF Project Manager for an application pack via A.Harvey@staffs.ac.uk.

Staffordshire University HEIF mid term review

Posted on January 27, 2014 by ejd2

We are now two years into our HEIF programme and a lot has happened. So I thought it would be useful to provide some high level figures on the activity that has taken place from Aug 2011- July 2013. Please find attached a document demonstrating the outputs achieved to date. View here: HEIF mid term review – External Copy (Nov 2013)

Alex Harvey, HEIF Programme Manager

Policy & Research Small Grants Open Call

Posted on January 24, 2014 by Josephine Beech

Nesta have launched a New small grants fund they want to find new ideas and foster collaboration with a wide array of organisations so a open call has been launched where up to ten projects in total will be funded across the year. The maximum budget is 10k and examples of expected projects are:

primarily research-based
developing a paper
a proof of concept
policy idea.

NESTA research themes

Development and application of innovative methods for understanding innovation
Using big data or open data to understand innovation
Mapping and analysing new trends in social, business or technological innovation
Public policies to promote innovation
Adoption of innovation in public services
Innovation in emerging economies

To find out more click on this link – http://www.nesta.org.uk/Small-Grants-Open-Call

Re-imagining the high street

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Breathing new life into Britain’s high streets – Technology Strategy Board

Business have been challenged to come up with new ways to rejuvenate Britain’s high streets, as part of an £8m investment by the Technology Strategy Board

The high street is facing a growing challenge from online shopping and out-of-town superstores.

Today’s shoppers spend more than half of their outlay away from town and city centres. While sales from physical stores, both in and out of town, have remained constant over the last five years, online sales have risen by 222% or £18.5bn.

Despite a positive outlook for retail as a whole – with increasing year-on-year retail sales and a near 20% increase in online sales over the past year, high vacancy rates and challenging trading conditions for the High St remain.

A new competition through TSB will encourage exciting new developments that could change the way business is done across our high streets – David Willetts, University and Science Minister explained the following;

“Technology plays a vital role in people’s everyday lives and has the ability to influence our movements and shopping habits. By developing innovations to regenerate the retail sector we will be able to breathe new life into the UK’s high streets. This competition will encourage exciting new developments that could change the way business is done across our high streets. Giving shoppers and businesses real time information that they can use to their advantage will make a real difference in helping to boost the UK economy. This competition is aimed at encouraging businesses of all sizes to come up with innovations that address key challenges, such as ways we can combine both physical and virtual shopping or develop real-time parking information.”

The competition, ‘Re-imagining the high street‘, is being run under the SBRI (Small Business Research Initiative) programme, which provides opportunities for innovative businesses to develop products or services that solve particular challenges faced by government bodies.

Click here to find out more about the competition

Funding for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Growth research

Posted on January 6, 2014 by ejd2

Grants for innovation, entrepreneurship and growth experiments

Nesta have launched a call for proposals for “experimental research that provides evidence on the best approaches to increase innovation, support high-growth entrepreneurship and accelerate business growth”.

The scheme is looking to fund a range of approaches through randomized control trials. Example activities provided include models of technology transfer from universities, different approaches to managing and stimulating innovation, networks and collaboration, open innovation, innovative procurement, amongst others. The call documents highlight economic and social entrepreneurship and return on investment will be supported.

Given our University research and HEIF expertise we expect a lot of interest in this call so please contact externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk if you are interested to ensure we have a coordinated approach.

The call deadline is 24th February with further details at http://www.nesta.org.uk/about-us/work-us/grants-for-innovation.

The Closed Loop Building Materials Facility

Posted on December 12, 2013 by nl6

View a YouTube video demonstrating the Closed Loop Building Facility

The closed-loop system invented by Professor Michael Anderson and his team provides a method of producing high quality sustainable building products from previously unusable-quality waste glass. Using this innovative process he can produce paving slabs, external wall cladding-slips, floor tiles and construction blocks. Not only are the products themselves green, but the brick-slip product offer considerable building scope as when combined with a highly insulating backing-panel structure, the system can be used as ‘over-cladding’, thereby greatly improving the insulation of non-cavity wall Victorian/Edwardian dwellings. At the same time the visual appearance of the original structures can be preserved, as the slips can be manufactured to match the appearance of the original early brickwork. Thus allowing look-alike appearances to be maintained, this will help to contribute to the solution of preserving our heritage.

The process could also be very useful in urbanising and developing countries where rapidly growing populations are creating vast amounts of waste glass which is being dumped in landfill but which could actually be used in environmentally friendly construction projects. This would be particularly useful for tourist islands which import thousands if not millions of drink bottles every year and have to pay very high prices to then have them shipped off the island, but which could be used to regenerate existing holiday resorts.

Finally, the process itself is self-sustaining. Unlike clay and concrete, the recycled glass products can be easily disassembled at the end of their life and recycled back into new building materials again and again and could change the entire way we think about building. This promises to make a significant contribution to sustainability in the future!

The project was recently shortlisted for the IET Awards which celebrates the very best innovations in Science, Engineering and Technology and attracts over 400 entries from over 30 Countries with only 74 finalists being selected.

If you are interested in the project and would like to investigate further opportunities to how this could be scaled up and have potential to be commercialised please contact the team at the Office of Sustainability via sustainability@staffs.ac.uk or phone 01782 295837.

Staffordshire University Research and Funding Blog

Tag Archives: innovation