Get involved with £20m Tay Cities Region Local Innovation Partnership led by Abertay University
Abertay University is inviting businesses, public bodies and sector partners to explore collaboration through a new UKRI-backed Local Innovation Partnership. It's designed to apply games and creative technologies to entertainment and real-world challenges across diverse verticals. The UK government's innovation funding body, UKRI (UK Research & Innovation) has shown a huge vote of confidence in Dundee and Tay Cities Region through the award of one of only 20 LIPs across the UK and only 2 in Scotland.
The programme aims to grow one of the UK’s most distinctive creative technology (Createch) clusters and connect it with sectors such as healthcare, energy, manufacturing, education, architecture, engineering and the public sector.
The opportunity builds on the region’s internationally recognised strengths in games, real-time 3D, immersive technology, simulation and design-led innovation. These tools are increasingly being used beyond entertainment, supporting areas such as digital twins, surgical training, factory simulation, immersive skills development, net-zero infrastructure planning and new digital health products.
Abertay leads the Scotland hub for the UK Government funded CoSTAR Network for the development of the createch sectors such as virtual production,immersive and AI. The Scotland hub including the Real Time Studio and Lab is at Water's Edge Dundee.
So it's a great opportunity to bring live sector challenges into the programme, with routes to involvement including design sprints, hackathons, innovation challenges, pilot and demonstrator sites, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, PhD sponsorships, entrepreneur-in-residence activity, cash match funding and in-kind support.
Scale of the opportunity
Games-technology spillovers generate £1.3bn in economic output with Createch contributing £18bn GVA to the UK. Dundee is recognised as a Top 12 high-potential creative cluster city and has a strong track record through programmes like InGAME, Design in Action, the Tay Cities Region Deal and the UK Games Fund.
So if you fancy a chat to explore the opportunities get in touch. Email Professor Gregor White at g.white@abertay.ac.uk.
We're also keen to speak to companies about their innovation plans so call Julie Craik at taytech on 01382 432483 or email.