Rare injection of innovation cash for the UK’s southeast

Innovators, and those who support them, in the south east of England occasionally complain that they get less of the regional money, national or EU, to support technology businesses that floods into places like the north east and north west of the country. So it is interesting to see that the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) chose to work with Finance South East (FSE) on a “pioneering” new grant scheme. in all, the first round of this new fund will have £2 million to distribute in lumps of up to £100,000.

Under the scheme, “FSE will deliver a new two year pilot fund that will facilitate the collaboration of universities with industry”. The idea is that there will be grants of up to £100,000 for “academic institutions that have previously received EPSRC research funding and that wish to work in collaboration with a commercial partner to develop that research into an industry application”.

FSE is a hybrid public-private organisation that receives backing from South East England Development Agency (SEEDA). It has a number of funds that work at different dinancial levels to support various aspects of the innovation process. The organisations says that it has “over £20m of funds under management and early-stage proof-of-concept funding is one of its specialist areas”.

Dr John Baird, EPSRC’s head of Knowledge Transfer, says that he expects to see three calls a year for the new funds. He believes that the scheme “will deliver practical support to researchers looking to explore the commercial potential of their work with a collaborative partner.  Key benefits will include experienced mentors assigned to each project and access to funding advisors for help with business planning and the structure of a suitable longer term funding package.”