Business Innovation projects secure £2m in grants for University

Since the start of the new academic year the University has been awarded more than £2m for innovations-related projects.

The funding, granted through the University’s Kent Innovation and Enterprise (KIE), includes £591,970 for three new Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs). Previous KTPs carried out by the University of Kent have achieved the highest possible rating by Innovate UK.

KIE Director, Carole Barron, said: ‘Innovation is a key driver of economic growth and organisations now understand how the University’s approach to innovation and enterprise can add value to their business. Our international expertise and cutting edge facilities are very well appreciated by the business community.’

Other projects for which the total funding is £1,566,988 include:

• Professor Martin Warren (Biosciences) secured a Royal Society Industry Fellowship. Working with a company called Mologic to develop a simple diagnostic test for Vitamin B12, the project is for four years.
• Dr Rob Barker (School of Physical Sciences) has also secured a Royal Society Short Industry Fellowship with Infineum, a leading lubricant additive manufacturer.
• Professor Samuele Marcora (School of Sport and Exercise Sciences) and Dr Caroline Li (Computing) have been successful with an application to Defence and Security Accelerator for their Human Performance strand.
• Dr Palani Ramaswamy (Computing) has been funded by the Road Safety Trust for a two year project ‘Using Cognitive Responses to Assess and Improve Vehicle Brake Light Designs’.
• Professor Stephen Peckham, Centre for Health Services Studies (CHSS), is being funded by Public Health England to create an undergraduate curriculum for Medical Schools for health and work.
• Professor Jenny Billings (CHSS) is being funded by Innovate UK for their NHS Test Bed programme. Her team will be evaluating the efficacy of P1vital’s digital intervention for the NHS depression treatment pathway.
• Dr Ferhena Hashem (CHSS) is being funded by Health Education England for the provision of training internships for medical staff developing their medical research careers.
• Professor Iain Fraser (School of Economics) has been successful in an application to the Food Standards Agency against extremely stiff competition, for a project to understand consumer values.
• Professor Jane Reeves (Centre for Child Protection, SSPSSR) has been successful in her application to the Home Office for anti-radicalisation training.

The Knowledge Transfer Partnerships are:

• Dyrhoff with the School of Engineering and Digital Arts (EDA): to develop a system for measuring the cross-sectional shape, height and vibration of inflatable rubber dams.

• PlanSnap with Computing, EDA and Psychology: Combining three different academic disciplines, the project will work to embed expert data analytics and a deep understanding of social networking theories to enable development of the next generation of social planning tools.

• Eurostar with Kent Business School (KBS): to gain new knowledge in simulation technology systems to develop capacity planning and large scale modelling capability in order to increase capacity.

The dedicated business and innovation gateway team at the University offers state-of-the-art facilities in Canterbury, Medway and Brussels. For further information KIE can be contacted online, by email enterprise@kent.ac.uk or phone +44 (0)1227 827376