Is my business eligible? See below for eligible guidelines.

The first section covers general eligibility for working with the centre.

The last 2 sections cover additional requirements for the 3 year programme for funded R&D

If you have any questions please contact us.

Location

Your business, or its R&D activities, must be located in the Northwest of the UK (Lancashire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Merseyside & Cheshire).

Size

The organisation must have less than 250 employees (full time equivalent) and must have an annual turnover less than €50m euros (approx £43m).

Being innovative...

The centre was designed to address market failures and provide R&D to SMEs who otherwise would not be able to develop their ideas.

We want to work with businesses who

• Have new ideas.
• Can see the benefit of working with new, diverse thinkers who may challenge their conventional approach to business or to their industry.
• Recognises recessionary periods are exactly the right time to innovate to survive.

Which sectors are eligible?

The centre works with a diverse range of sectors including (but not limited to):

• Aerospace
• Automotive
• Chemicals
• Digital and creative
• Energy and environmental technologies
• High value manufacturing sectors

Additional eligibility requirements for the 3 year programme for funded R&D

What kind of R&D? Blue Sky? Technical Development? Prototypes?

Projects can cover any aspect of your business and R&D needs. Our expertise is broad and the research may take many forms, from intensive lab based studies to testing the feasibility of a new internal process or service through detailed market research.

Eligible types of project

• Projects undertaken entirely within a university environment from which the SME would directly benefit via the commercialisation of new research.
• Projects which aim to provide rigorous scientific validation to established or new products and services of partner SMEs.
• Projects undertaken with an initial period within a university environment (1-2 years) and a subsequent period (3rd year) in an SME environment.
• Projects undertaken on a dual-site basis with graduates spending regular periods of time within both an SME and university environment (e.g. over a week or month timescale).
• Projects which use and evaluate established products and services (from a partner SME) for new markets.

Funding

Businesses must demonstrate that they can meet the cost of the project.

The centre has been successful in accessing European funding to support the development of consultancy projects in companies and can therefore provide 3 year intensive R&D via a graduate consultant at a heavily subsided rate to SME companies based within the Northwest ERDF Objective 2 fully eligible areas.

The total value of assistance to companies undertaking 3-year projects is around £130,000.

The company will pay, on receipt of an annual invoice issued on the first working day of August 2012, 2013 and 2014 the fee of £4,000 (each year, for 3 years) to the university.