The Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council (SFC) is investing £100,000 in an innovation scheme to help Scottish universities work with small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

The scheme can be used to offset costs for a broad range of collaborative activities to support business growth, including developing innovative, new products and processes, new service development, improved production process, new business model development, technology audits or experimental testing and measuring.

Small businesses play a major role in Scotland’s economy and the aim of SFC's innovation scheme is to encourage new partnerships between universities and business.

By drawing on their world-class research and expertise, universities in Scotland can help SMEs resolve a business issue quickly and efficiently and increase their competitive position.

The outputs may lead to improvements in product quality, creation of an 'innovation culture' or productivity gains for the business. The innovation scheme has been modelled on similar schemes which have been adopted successfully in other parts of the UK and in Europe.

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The new scheme will be administered by Interface - The knowledge connection for business, a national programme supported by the SFC, who match-make businesses with expertise, skills and research facilities at Scotland’s universities and research institutes. Interface has helped many businesses to join up with universities to provide business solutions including the University of Strathclyde and Glasgow School of Art which carried out a feasibility study for the development of eco-friendly insulation.

Each university can apply for a minimum of £500, and up to a maximum of £5,000 and the SME is expected to match fund SFC's contribution.

This funding will enable small, bespoke projects, such as feasibility studies or access to facilities, get off the ground as a foundation to long-term relationships. The focus will be across all company sectors and all university disciplines from arts and humanities to science and engineering.

Mark Batho, Chief Executive of SFC said: "Scotland's universities have excellent research and academic expertise and it is important that we create new opportunities for them to exchange ideas and their knowledge with SMEs.

"Other innovation schemes that are in place around the UK tend to focus on giving grants to SMEs to buy expertise from universities. We wanted to turn this around and encourage universities to seek out SMEs to provide solutions for their business. We see several benefits to this scheme; long-term business relationships are established and new products and processes will contribute to our economy."

(GK/JM)