SQW supports successful Innovation Accelerator submission
The Levelling Up White Paper announced a £100m programme of three pilot ‘Innovation Accelerators’ across Greater Manchester, Glasgow city-region and the West Midlands. We are delighted that the “Pilots for the Sustainable Materials Translational Research Centre” (p-SMTRC) has been announced as one of the successful projects from Greater Manchester.
Over recent months, we have worked closely with partners from Greater Manchester's Graphene, Advanced Materials & Manufacturing Alliance (GAMMA) – including Rochdale Development Agency and the University of Manchester - to support the development of the SMTRC vision. This included an initial demand assessment phase where we engaged with 40 companies from across Greater Manchester and surrounding areas to understand their materials related innovation needs and challenges. Informed by industry feedback, we then supported GAMMA’s original submission to the Innovation Accelerator process.
The p-SMTRC project which will receive the Innovation Accelerator funding will pilot many of the approaches and delivery partnerships for the full SMTRC vision. We are currently finalising a Green Book compliant Business Case in support of this. The SMTRC is described in GMCA’s recent Innovation Plan as “a new national R&D asset in Atom Valley, the Sustainable Materials Translational Research Centre, which will accelerate industry scale commercialisation of IP from existing assets in the city-region and integrate into national translational research networks such as the High Value Manufacturing Catapult.”
To learn more about our work in project development and Business Cases, please contact Luke Delahunty.
