Research England Launch £10m Call for University Enterprise Zones
The Research England Development (RED) Fund aims to support the development of the higher education sector’s research and knowledge exchange in line with the developing priorities of Government and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
As part of the RED Fund, Research England has launched a competitive call for bids to advance the Government’s University Enterprise Zones (UEZ) programme. It is part of the RED Fund priority “Delivering Industrial Strategy through knowledge exchange” with reference to “addressing challenges and opportunities in university commercialisation policy and practice”.
Research England wish to support a high quality portfolio of projects that advance the Government’s UEZ programme, contribute to successful university delivery of business incubation and further good practice. To achieve this, they are seeking proposals where the academic strengths of the university align with the sector strengths of the local/regional area. These innovative proposals should leverage R&D and expertise stemming from the university and industry, generating partnerships to drive local growth.
Applications are particularly encouraged from those institutions who have not previously benefited from significant public funding for local university-business collaborations.
The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) have provided Research England with an additional £5 million to advance the UEZ programme. Research England will allocate up to £5 million additional funding from the RED Fund, making up to a total of £10 million available to support projects.
Research England expect to make up to ten awards of between £500k and £1.5m.
On announcement of the funding, Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, Chris Skidmore, said:
“Our universities are among the best in the world, and when they join forces with our ambitious and innovative small businesses, they have the potential to meet the grand challenges of the future.
“Today’s investment to bring business and academics together will not only lead to the creation of new products and services, it will boost job creation for local areas to feel the benefits of UK innovation which demonstrates our modern Industrial Strategy in action.”
The deadline for applications is 11 April 2019.
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