Support for Startups & New Product Development – Tools, Resources and Funding

Robin BrownManagerNorth of Scotland KTP Centre

10:00 Introductions and welcome by Dr. Gordon Drummond - NSRI, Project Director

10:10 Matthew Wasley

The Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) is a network management organisation, whose main objective is to accelerate innovation by connecting people that may not naturally meet. It was established by Innovate UK (the UK’s Innovation funding agency) to build better links between science, creativity and business sectors.

KTN currently employs >120 people and has specialist teams covering all significant sectors of the economy, from Technology, Manufacturing, Industrial Biotechnology, Materials, AgriTech and Energy, through to the Circular Economy, the Digital and Creative Industries.

The talk will cover some upcoming funding opportunities from Innovate UK and elsewhere, and will outline KTN’s support for business.

Mat began his career in defence science with the Defence Research Agency (now QinetiQ), moving from applied research to project management and then business development. He then worked for a time at the Defence Diversification Agency, before moving to a knowledge transfer role at the University of Birmingham. Seven years ago Mat moved to Scotland and the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance, where he was responsible for SUPA's knowledge exchange in a broad sense including public outreach as well as more traditional commercial activity. He joined the Knowledge Transfer network in 2016 as Knowledge Transfer Manager for Photonics, where develops and supports business-business and business-research collaborations across the UK.

10:30 Robin Brown

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP)

A little innovation can go a very long way. But where will you find the right specialists to help you innovate? That's where Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP) comes in, providing links to the expertise you need to grow your business. KTP is a world-leading programme, tried and tested over 40 years, that helps businesses succeed by connecting them to the UK's rich academic resources. It's a partnership between the business seeking expertise, a university and a recently qualified graduate – known as an Associate.

Funding your project

Your project can last between 12 months and three years. If you're a small or medium-sized business, Government grant funding will cover 67% of the project cost, leaving an average of around £22,000 a year for your company to pay. If you're part of a larger company, funding will cover 50% of the project cost, leaving an average of around £33,000 a year to pay. That's great value, especially as evidence shows that businesses who invest in R&D grow twice as fast and have higher exports compared to non-innovators.

Matthew WasleyKnowledge Transfer Manager for PhotonicsKnowledge Transfer

The North of Scotland KTP Centre

The North of Scotland KTP Centre is a joint collaboration between the University of Aberdeen and Robert Gordon University, also providing support to the University of Abertay Dundee, University of Highlands and Islands and the James Hutton Institute.

The Centre provides assistance and guidance in completing the KTP application forms and provides secretarial and administration support once the project has been awarded. To date the Centre has helped and successfully managed more than 220 KTP projects and has a 95% success rate in getting applications approved.

The presentation will cover what KTP is and how it works, what we do in the North of Scotland KTP Centre, our success to date, but more importantly the Future. The Government has just announced increased funding for KTP projects so there couldn’t be a better time to apply!

Manager of the North of Scotland KTP Centre since May 2000.

Responsible for developing Knowledge Transfer Partnerships between companies and Higher Education Institutions in the North of Scotland. (The Centre has been responsible for gaining more than 220 KTP Grant Awards. These awards represent a total of ~ £28M being invested in Industry led R&D).

Previous 20 years’ experience in the Salmon Farming Industry in Scotland at a senior level.

10:50 Jules Lancastle

Elevator assists early stage, scale-up business founders by getting them out of the starting blocks and into the fast lane. Jules will share more about the support available to validate your business idea, gain traction and expand your ambition beyond existing horizons.

Jules is a positive enthusiast of ambitious entrepreneurs and enjoys the energy of rapid growth enterprises. Building on her own career in leadership training and programme development, she began her entrepreneurial journey in 2002 and ran an employee engagement business in Scotland and London for 14 years. Helping founders experience the pride, passion and fun rewards of an accelerated start up, is very exciting! Nurturing the energy and momentum of founders to get more scalable business ideas across the start line is a great challenge and brings huge rewards!

11:10 – 11:30 Coffee and Tea Break

Jules LancastleAccelerator ManagerElevator UK

Gillian HambleyBusiness Engagement ExecutiveInterface

Stuart LaidlawQuality and Process Engineering ManagerAFRC

11:30 Gillian Hambley

Interface has extensive expertise in supporting businesses across all sectors by connecting them to world class academic expertise to help increase innovation by supporting the creation and development of new products, services and processes. With established connections in each of Scotland’s universities, research institutions and colleges Interface is able to identify the right expertise, the best technologies and the most relevant facilities and equipment to solve any number of business challenges. Gillian Hambley, Business Engagement Executive for Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, will provide an introduction to Interface and demonstrate, through case studies of successful academic-business collaborations, how they can and have already supported numerous companies.

Interface has extensive expertise in supporting businesses across all sectors by connecting them to world class academic expertise to help increase innovation by supporting the creation and development of new products, services and processes. With established connections in each of Scotland’s universities, research institutions and colleges Interface is able to identify the right expertise, the best technologies and the most relevant facilities and equipment to solve any number of business challenges. Gillian Hambley, Business Engagement Executive for Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, will provide an introduction to Interface and demonstrate, through case studies of successful academic-business collaborations, how they can and have already supported numerous companies.

11:50 Stuart Laidlaw

Enabling Technology of Tomorrow, Today

The Advanced Forming Research Centre addresses the gap between technology conceptand commercialisation, supporting companies of all sizes across a wide range of manufacturing sectors with industrial R&D challenges.

This presentation will showcase previous examples of engagement with the industry, as well as the supporting mechanisms such as:

R4i – Free self-assessment tool for SME’s and innovators to assess their Readiness for Innovation.

Down Selection Tools: Identifying opportunities for improvement in both material selection and manufacturing processes.

Automation Review: Helping companies identify opportunities for effective introduction of automation solutions.

CR&D Bid application support.

Stuart Laidlaw joined the Advance Forming Research Centre back in 2015 bringing with him over 25 years’ experience in the metallurgical manufacturing industry. His final 5 years in industry saw him taking the position of Quality and Process Engineering manager for a 500 employee manufacturing site, running 4 cross-departmental technical teams, with full

Ana GallardoTeam Leader – Entrepreneurial and Ecosystem DevelopmentScottish Enterprise

responsibility for the quality and technical aspects of a £40million per annum manufacturing business.Within his short time at the AFRC, Stuart has focussed on developing the centre’s support offering for SME’s and developing the AFRC SME network, which comprises more than 300 companies across a range of sectors from Oil & Gas to Aerospace, Automotive to Food & Drink, Medical to Renewables. The AFRC has helped many SME companies access funding to support their R&D and Innovation requirements, from £5000 Innovation Vouchers to £1M+ Innovate UK competitive calls

12:10 Ana Gallardo

Ana will present an overview of the Scottish Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, outlining the type of support available in Scotland (including incubators, accelerators, co-working spaces, entrepreneurial support organisations and networking organisations) with a focus on what is available in Aberdeen. Including an overview of Scottish Enterprise, who we are and how we fit into this support ecosystem, Ana will cover how SE supports both entrepreneurs and businesses, giving examples of how SE has supported high growth start up and scale up companies in the Energy sector and how best you can access this wide range of support.

Ana Gallardo is a Team Leader within the Entrepreneurial Growth team at Scottish Enterprise, leading a team focused on maximising the number of high growth entrepreneurs scaling up from Scotland. With a strong technical background in commercialising technology from a range of sectors, including life sciences, renewable energy and digital, Ana now heads up the Entrepreneurial Development team within Scottish Enterprise. Ana leads on activities for supporting high growth entrepreneurs to scale up from Scotland, connecting investors to high growth Scottish companies and working with partners to enable Scotland’s ecosystem to become a world class entrepreneurial hub. Having held previous roles with Cambridge Life Sciences. Hydrosense and ITI Scotland, Ana joined Scottish Enterprise in 2009. Originally from Granada in Spain, Ana is now based in Edinburgh and works across Scotland and internationally.

12:30 – 13:00 Lunch

13:00 David Millar

An introduction to the OGTC with an emphasis on our focus areas and in particular the drive for subsea innovation, development and deployment of Technology to

lower the lifecycle costs of Oil and Gas field developments.

As Technology Accelerator Director, David works with entrepreneurs, SMEs and the oil and gas industry to stimulate and accelerate technology innovation. David brings over 14 years’ experience across operators and service companies such as ABB, Shell, BP, ENI and Wood Group, developing and delivering organisational learning, improvement and innovation programmes with great success. Driven by his passion to make a difference for the industry

David MillarTechnology Accelerator DirectorOGTC

and the North-East, his leadership of the Technology Accelerator will bring new and exciting dimensions to the Oil and Gas Technology Centre offering. David joins us from Wood Group where he set up and ran the company’s global ‘Innovation for Growth function’, as well as developing its eWorking programme.

13:20 Ian Phillips

Ian Phillips will introduce the concept of technology readiness – a 9 point scale originally developed by NASA and now used by governments in the UK, the EU and around the world to explain how near a technology is to being usable. This scale is important as it explains where government grants are available, and why they are sometimes restricted by State Aid law.

He will provide an overview of the various agencies that provide such support in the UK, before providing more detail of the Scottish funding support mechanisms that are of particular relevance to companies in the North East of Scotland. As part of this he will explain the Scottish “Innovation Centre” programme that OGIC is a part of

He will then explain in detail the OGIC process which is available to any company to apply to.

Finally he will explain how OGIC fits in with the new Oil and Gas Technology Centre (The OGTC).

Ian Phillips has over 30 years’ experience in the upstream oil and gas industry, including 18 years with oil operating companies (Shell, BP, Marathon and Ramco) and 6 years with a major service company (Halliburton). He worked up from being a reservoir engineer involved in exploration and field development projects to being a Project Director responsible for full field development programmes.In 2007 he became a founding Director of CO2DeepStore Limited, one of the first companies specifically seeking to provide the service of CO2 capture, transportation and deep geological storage to alleviate the worst effects of climate change.In September 2014 he became Chief Executive of OGIC – the Oil and Gas Innovation Centre – a Scottish government backed research funding agency that is entirely demand-led. OGIC provides grants to support company-led research and development in Scottish Universities.Ian is the chairman of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Aberdeen Section that has won the SPE Presidents Award for Section Excellence for 8 straight years, and is a Director of Young Enterprise in Grampian. He obtained an M.Eng. in Petroleum Engineering from Heriot Watt University in 1983, and an MBA through the Open University in 1994. He is also a Fellow of the UK Energy Institute and is a Chartered Petroleum Engineer.

Ian PhillipsChief ExecutiveOGIC

13:40 Andrew Tipping

TBC

14:00 Close