£52 million funding for business-focused universities

The DTI has awarded £52 million to a range of universities under the third round of the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF). The aim of the awards is to help build closer ties between business and higher education institutions.

Among those projects sharing in the £52 million funding handout are initiatives aiming to boost the number of entrepreneurs, to establish UK creative industries in China and to target the early signs of disease.

On announcing the funding, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Alistair Darling said, "Innovation and science are the keys to UK economic growth. Figures show that university spinouts floated on the stock market over the last two years were valued at more than £1 billion. Exploiting the wealth of knowledge in higher education and translating that into real business opportunities is, therefore, vitally important for the UK economy.

"The Higher Education Innovation Fund brings together university research with private sector investment, and stimulates a culture of entrepreneurship within Higher Education institutions.

"Innovation is key to our future economic prosperity and it is encouraging to see so many universities working with business to translate new ideas and technology into improved productivity and job opportunities."

The eleven competitive winning bids include:

* University of Arts London: Creative Capital World City. To increase the competitive advantage of UK creative companies doing business in China and India. In 2001 creative industries accounted for 8.2 per cent of UK GDP and delivered £54.8 billion to UK Gross Value Added.

* University of Leeds: White Rose Health Innovation Partnership. To develop new methods, not yet tried in the UK, to stimulate innovation in healthcare using the experience of medical technologies in the US.

* University of Wolverhampton: Student Placements for Entrepreneurs in Education. This will create 750 new enterprises and entrepreneurs and particularly encourage the participation of under represented groups of entrepreneurs by encouraging controlled risk and identifying entrepreneurial talent at an early stage with the aim of students creating their business while still studying.

Rama Thirunamachandran, Director of Research and Knowledge Transfer at the Higher Education Funding Council for England added, "We are also announcing continuation of funding for 22 Centres for Knowledge Exchange, which lead and demonstrate good practice in exchanging knowledge, practice and skills between HE and business and the community.