Sector News
Business Durham appointed to lead Satellite Innovation Centre
Business Durham has been appointed to lead the North East Satellite Applications Centre of Excellence until March 2022, having provided support to the sector since 2014. The Satellite Applications Catapult and the UK Space Agency, which funds the centre,...
Business rates revaluation postponed
A revaluation of business rates will no longer take place in 2021 to help reduce uncertainty for firms affected by the impacts of coronavirus, Communities Secretary Rt...
Latest UKSPA webinar launched as lockdown exit strategy is announced this week
It is anticipated that the Prime Minister will announce a series of Government rules to establish a strategy for reopening selected areas of the economy for UK business, as part of an expected easing of lockdown on Thursday 7 May. It is understood that these measures...
Top-up to local business grant funds scheme includes shared workspaces
A discretionary fund has been set up to accommodate certain small businesses previously outside the scope of the business grant funds scheme. The Business Secretary Alok Sharma and Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government, Simon Clarke spoke to local...
£2m microbial sequencing boost for Quadram Institute Bioscience
Quadram Institute Bioscience in Norwich has received £2 million from UKRI to fund state-of-the-art cloud-computing infrastructure to enable UK microbiologists to analyse microbial sequences, including COVID-19 viral genomes. Quadram has launched CLIMB-BIG-DATA, a...
Heavenly Connections
The network increasing awareness of angel investor benefits Minerva Business Angels are part of the University of Warwick Science Park Ltd and initially started as an informal network in 1994. In 2010 we formed our first investment group and from there we have...
Willmott Dixon lands agri-food R&D development in Lincolnshire
Latest in a series of projects in this county to create jobs and encourage inward investment Willmott Dixon has secured the role to build the University of Lincoln’s £7m agri-food research and development (R&D) facility at Peppermint Park – part of the South...
Tech innovation centre to boost city region’s SMEs
Technology innovation centre CPI has announced a new project to work with SMEs across Leeds City Region to accelerate the commercialisation of new formulated products. The project, called ‘Formulation Technology applied to Materials and Products’ (ForTaMP), is...
Heading in the right direction
Transformational transport investment for Northern regeneration Productivity is vital for economic growth. It determines the wealth, wages and living standards of a society and is critical for ensuring the long-term success of a country. The Government has said that...
Enriching innovation ecosystems with diversity in business and cities
From filling gaps to closing them for good. Boosting innovation across the UK matters more than ever Economic and industrial strategies developed over the last few years (including the Government’s Industrial Strategy and the emerging plethora of Local Industrial...
Coronavirus: EU guidance for a safe return to the workplace
How to ensure the health and safety of workers when they come back to the workplace? This important question is on the minds of many employers as EU countries plan or execute a progressive return to work after coronavirus. In response, the European Agency for Safety...
Biomedical Catalyst: Non-dilutive funding for Health & Life Science companies
The UK has a thriving health & life science sector that is a highly productive, R&D intensive cornerstone of the UK economy. Numerous challenges await small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) seeking to explore and develop innovative new products such as...
The state of investment into UK Life Sciences companies
Some of the key challenges of the 21st century will be biological; ageing populations, antibiotic resistant bacteria, and the threat of epidemics, as illustrated by the spread of the coronavirus, are just a few of the developments that require urgent attention....
Next steps on Government support for start-ups
After the announcement of the Government support for startups earlier this week, we wanted to explain a little more about what the next steps on this package of support will be, and how you can input.First, as you will likely have seen the Government’s £1.25bn support...
Welsh Government support for Microbusinesses
The Welsh Government has introduced 2 separate grant schemes, the Non Domestic Rates grant and the Economic Resilience Fund. The Economic Resilience Fund is broken down as follows: £100m COVID-19 Wales Business Loan Scheme administered by Development Bank of Wales...