Scotland's Innovation on Show
The EU-funded Explorathon 4D project had the remit to engage over 4,000 members of the public in Glasgow on Friday 30th September 2016. The project wanted to showcase to the public that not all research takes place in academia. By featuring the Scottish Funding Council's eight Innovation Centres and their partner organisations, we were able to highlight the novel way in which government funding is bringing together academia and businesses large and small, to increase the pace of innovation across Scotland.
When it comes to innovation, coming up with the core idea is one thing – implementing it can be quite another. Often, it demands industry know-how, specialist research, new skillsets, not forgetting additional sources of funding. That’s where Scotland’s Innovation Centres come in.
Funded by the Scottish Funding Council with support from Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the Innovation Centre programme was first launched back in 2012 following a £120m investment across a range of key sectors. Everything from sensing to stratified medicine, digital health and care to data, aquaculture to oil and gas, and biotechnology to construction.
The common aim of each Centre: to help businesses large and small increase the pace of innovation – and, in turn, help both our economy and our people to flourish and prosper.
Innovation Avenue
At the Explorathon event, visitors had the opportunity to take a walk down ‘innovation avenue’ meeting with some of our researchers and businesses demoing their latest innovations. Everything from portable DNA testing kits; virtual reality headsets demonstrating interactive tours of new construction sites and architecture designs; and the PufferSphere Touch, a cool 360° sphere telling stories in a unique digital way.
