This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Increasing business competitiveness
08/08/2005
The University of Strathclyde will receive almost
£272,000 to expand the CompetitiveScotland.com network.
Announcing the award today under the SEEKIT (Scottish
Executive Expertise, Knowledge & Innovation
Transfer)programme, Deputy Minister for Enterprise and
Lifelong Learning Allan Wilson said:
"CompetitiveScotland.com has proven successful in
linking universities with Scottish businesses so far, and
this award will enhance its standing even further.
"The grant will help develop a programme to transfer
knowledge and technology from universities to small and
medium sized enterprises (SMEs), which will improve their
ability to innovate.
"Businesses will be able to access technology,
engineering and management expertise, primarily within
Strathclyde University.
"Newly developed technology will be more readily
available and marketable, SMEs will have more opportunities
to network and the resource will also allow companies to
draw on others' experiences to solve problems.
"Knowledge sharing such as this will give some of our
SMEs the opportunity to truly compete at both national and
international level.
"Some information will be freely available over the
Internet, while the technology transfer programme delivers
resources to participating SMEs which will improve their
competitiveness by enabling them to create better products
and processes.
"I am confident that this innovative and collaborative
project will improve the competitiveness of businesses
around the country."
This is the 11th project to be awarded funding under the
SEEKIT grant scheme. SEEKIT is designed to support projects
that promote co-operation in research and development and
knowledge transfer between the Scottish public sector
science base and Scottish SMEs.
Grants will be awarded to eligible public sector
organisations such as universities and research institutes.
This scheme aims to help effect wealth creation by
increasing the competitiveness of SMEs through their
engagement with the Scottish science base. It was launched
in December 2003.
There are two strands to this project : an electronic
repository of material, or K-Portal, and a knowledge and
technology transfer programme (TTP).