The Covid-19 pandemic is an unprecedented global crisis, affecting individuals, governments and businesses across the world. The greatest challenge of our time also presents the greatest opportunity in generations. A chance to challenge the status quo and ‘business as usual’ mantra that has dominated our economy since the industrial revolution.
Innovation is more important than ever if we are to bring business growth, resilience and create a truly green economy. We have heard calls for economic recovery plans to embed environmental shifts and carbon reductions. The UK government has pledged to ‘level up’ the country as part of Covid-19 recovery but it remains to be seen whether these plans will deliver steps towards a lower carbon economy in line with UK Clean Growth Strategy.
Whilst we plan ahead into a post Covid-19 world, business leaders need to address another and equally pressing global crisis – climate change. We believe what is better for business should also be better for the environment. We are pleased to announce our new Eco-I North West project, a £14m business R&D programme offering long and short term technical support to businesses across the UK North West.
Eco-I NW is delivered by a consortium of universities; Lancaster, Central Lancashire, Cumbria, Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores and Manchester Met, and follows 8 years of award winning and successful collaborative R&D activities. These universities are opening up their expertise and resource to progress business innovations.
Through Eco-I NW we seek to support low carbon business innovations across the region, including the areas of Cumbria, Lancashire, Liverpool City Region, Cheshire & Warrington and Greater Manchester. This is the first project of its kind that will open up such a huge regional resource to our businesses. In a time of crisis, we hope to facilitate business recovery, resilience, innovation and growth.
A current call for collaborative PhD projects is now open. We are seeking innovation-ready SMEs based in the UK North West across all sectors.
We are not led by specific technologies, but instead are driven by business needs and can facilitate a collaborative approach to problem solving. Our approach is to talk to companies and uncover challenge areas and support requirements to their particular needs. This often means supporting the development of a new product or service, exploring an innovative technology or expanding understanding to allow new markets to be reached.
Our collaborative approach means that there is something for everyone. Each institution offers a different set of expertise, equipment and resource which we are opening up to businesses. Through Eco-I NW we’re able to offer a complementary approach to suit business research and development across a variety of sectors, disciplines and complexities.
Eco-I NW is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund.
Please visit the Eco-I NW website, or contact us for further information:
business@cgeinnovation.org / 07970 744235 / 07773 098578
