UK sets up two new centres for university/business collaboration

Research Lead, Collaboration Opportunity

The UK has set up two further Innovation and Knowledge Centres at Queen’s University Belfast and Leeds University to accelerate and promote business exploitation of internet security and regenerative medicine research.

The key feature of the new centres is a shared space and entrepreneurial environment, in which researchers, potential customers and professionals academia and business work side-by-side to scope applications, business models and routes to market.

The Belfast centre will work on safeguarding the trustworthiness of information stored electronically, including countering cyber-attacks, while the Leeds Centre will research regenerative techniques and technologies to treat ailments of old age.

Paul Drayson, Science and Innovation Minister said the GBP 20 million investment in the centres, “Will foster an entrepreneurial environment where ground-breaking research can mix at an early stage with business and potential customers, to provide a clear commercial strategy for accelerating its impact on the economy.”

Belfast’s centre will develop security applications, ranging from protecting mobile phone networks to the creation of secure corridors for the seamless and rapid transit of people, circumventing the need for conventional security at airports.

The Leeds centre will focus on regenerative therapies, based on research into biological scaffolds, nano-biomaterials and self-assembling peptides designed to enhance and accelerate the regeneration of tissues by harnessing the power of endogenous stem cells.

Applications include the treatment of cardiovascular and musculoskeletal disease and cancer. The team is also working on a range of longer-lasting hip replacements.