Innovation Centres: a new way of working together

Over 170 companies are working in sensor system technology in Scotland, generating over £2.5 billion per year to economy, and this sector, globally and in Scotland, has huge growth potential. To meet that opportunity, CENSIS aims to deliver 150 collaborative research products in its first five years.

Twelve of Scotland’s universities are involved along with a range of industry partners.

Twelve Scottish universities are involved, with more than 450 academic researchers working primarily on oil and gas specific technologies. The Innovation Centre connects these researchers with more than 2,000 oil and gas operators and service companies. The initial investment of £10.6 million is expected to leverage over £26 million investments from other sources within the first five years.

Aquaculture is the rearing, breeding and harvesting of plants and animals in water environments. The focuses of SAICinclude shellfish health and welfare, sustainable feeds, stock improvement and application of engineering and automation solutions.

Aquaculture already contributes up to £1.86 billion each year to the Scottish economy and 8,300 jobs, and is particularly important in fragile rural communities. As an indication of the scale of growth potential industry estimates show that every additional 1500 tonnes of salmon create an additional £10.5 million for the Scottish economy.

SAIC is headquartered at the University of Stirling. Funding from SAIC has leveraged additional funding from a number of sources including significant industry contributions (on average, £2.70 from industry for every £1 of SAIC investment).

The effective use of data could potentially benefit Scottish companies by £17 billion. This would include thousands of businesses, the majority of them SMEs. Companies that use ‘big data’ are five times more likely to make faster decisions than competitors and are twice as likely to be sector leaders. Data Lab runs projects which transfer world-leading informatics and computer science research and technology into industry.

Data Lab has hubs in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

There are over 31,000 businesses involved in the Scottish construction industry with over 170,000 people employed in construction (over 10% of all Scottish jobs). In terms of growth, building technologies and energy management sectors alone are forecast to support 15, 000 jobs by 2020.

CSIC aims to solve challenges in the construction industry by tapping into the academic base (Scotland has 20% of the UK’s academic capability in built environment) and to undertake over 250 projects in its first five years.

Digital health allows better tracking and management of health, as well as reducing inefficiencies in healthcare delivery, improving access and most importantly improving healthcare. The DHI is looking to address the demands on Scottish health and social care services through new technologies.

The global Digital Health market is estimated to be worth over $233bn by 2020 with a compound annual growth rate of 21%. Estimates show that by 2018 the market in Europe will account for 33% of the global health market by 2018 with a Scottish market of $1.2bn

SMS-IC aims to develop safer, more effective therapies and diagnostic tools. This centre is a collaboration of the Universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen, the four largest NHS Boards and business partners.

SMS-IC is a world-class centre for commercial delivery of stratified medicine, capitalising on Scotland’s unique features which make it so good for medical research including essentially one health provider (NHS Scotland); an electronic health record system; and a stable population base.

SMS-IC works with a range of companies such as pharmaceutical companies, healthcare providers, and medical diagnostic companies.