Innovation is key in shaping Scotland’s competitive advantage. When people decide to innovate, things change for the better. Businesses prosper, academic knowledge advances, quality of life improves, and Scotland’s economy benefits. This innovation can take many forms: a new product or process, a different way to deliver service to your customers, or a smaller change to an existing way of doing things.
Innovation is vital to business and helps to drive growth. It defines how we transform the things we do, how we make more from the services we offer and how we improve the things we make. Innovation is the successful exploitation of ideas to make our businesses ever more competitive across international markets and at home. In most, if not all of these markets, it is the key differentiator, which shapes Scotland’s competitive advantage and helps us win market share.
How we innovate has changed. It is no longer happening as an add-on for businesses but as a fundamental part of their plans for success. It is more likely to come from creative collaborations and if Scotland wants to innovate successfully then it is essential that we find the right partners – ones that not only share our vision but also our passion for success.
With the backing of £120m from the Scottish Funding Council, the Innovation Centres are designed to encourage innovation through industry-led collaboration with academia. They blend academic creativity and invention with industrial insights, providing and environment in which creativity of design, engineering and technology are combined to achieve results that bring tangible benefits to the Scottish economy. Each centre has specialist knowledge, so whatever the challenge, the ICs play a significant role in helping industry to deliver effective and transformational solutions. From sensing to stratified medicine, digital health to data, aquaculture to oil and gas, and biosciences to construction, there are eight to choose from – each one designed to drive further growth in an area of key economic importance to Scotland.
Revolutionary or evolutionary, Scotland’s Innovation Centres exist to help take your idea to the next level. Perhaps you’re looking for help with design, engineering and technology. Or maybe you want help managing your costs and risks, reducing time to market or turning an idea into a viable commercial product or service. Our connections can help. We know the leading companies breaking new ground in your niche area. We know the academics carrying out specialist research in your field. And we know the funding streams available. We also have a proven track record of bringing it all together to help get new ideas and innovations off the ground.
If your business values innovation as a growth opportunity and sees merit in a collaborative approach, then one of Scotland’s eight Innovation Centres could be the perfect partner. Each is a place where creativity of design, engineering and technology are combined to achieve results that bring tangible benefits to Scottish industry. They can provide help at any point along the journey from raw idea through to market entry.
This year, the Innovation Centres are proud to be partners of TEDx Glasgow. The theme at TEDxGlasgow 2016, is entitled ‘A Disruptive World’, considering how individuals and organisations can encourage disruption as a force for good, to make step-changes in thinking, actions and the wider communities. We feel a partnership with TEDx, a platform that showcases and supports the very best of ideas and current innovative work generated in Scotland, is a great way of joining forces to support our country’s most brilliant innovators.
As part of our involvement, the Innovation Centres are sponsoring a new space within TEDx this year, that is all about innovation. We are delighted to introduce the “Innovation Avenue” an interactive space that will showcase some of Scotland’s innovative technologies, where attendees will be able to explore, discover, and play with some impressive Scottish tech innovations, and hopefully be inspired to innovate themselves.
We will also host 2 “Innovation Lab” sessions, where we want to hear from you. We will invite some TEDx guests to come along and participate in these interactive sessions and share your ideas on how we can help drive innovation in Scotland even further.
To find out more about how we can help your next big idea soar, visit www.innovationcentres.scot.
