£5m plan to help Yorkshire academic research

TWO YORKSHIRE universities are taking part in a £5m programme to help get academic research into business.

The Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester will jointly establish the Northern Triangle Initiative or NTI, which will help take novel research to market, developing ideas based on innovations in areas such as advanced materials, medical technologies and computer science.

NTI aims to raise a further £350m to support university commercialisation and to strengthen entrepreneurial activity in the North of England. The University of Leeds already has a trackrecord in commercialising its research, creating more than 110 spin-out companies since 1995, six of which are listed on the financial markets, and which currently employ over 800 people.

This new funding, awarded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, is intended to accelerate closer links between universities and industry. It will provide sources of funding to support new ideas as they move from academia into the marketplace.

The Government announced that £20m in total will be allocated to English universities to forge closer links with industry. Jo Johnson, the Universities and Science Minister, said: “Universities have a vital role to play in their local communities and in the national economy.

“Given the record levels of public investment in R&D, it is essential that universities engage with businesses and communities to make the most of their knowledge and research.”

Professor Lisa Roberts, deputy vice-chancellor: research and innovation at the University of Leeds, said: “This is a great opportunity to build on our formidable reputation in commercialisation. The Universities of Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield are three research powerhouses in the North, and by working together we will have significant impact on the commercialisation of our research.”