In terms of commercially focussed R&D expenditure, Yorkshire and Humber is one of the UK’s top performers outside of London, attracting £347 million in academic research investment.
This, combined with over 100 university subject areas receiving the highest European research ratings, offers your business access to a wealth of expertise and innovation.
Yorkshire & Humber’s commercially minded research base, is supported by a network of centres, with strengths in green chemistry, clean energy economy, bio-lubricants, waste incineration, bio-diesels, combustion and radioactive waste immobilisation.
The region’s excellence in research, in both academic and clinical areas, continues to drive growth and support successful spin-out businesses. This has created business-driven innovation in the fields of fuel cell, photo-voltaic technology, wave and tidal power, hydrogen infrastructure and bio fuels.
By expanding into Yorkshire, your business could benefit from:
LIFE is the UK’s only business support organisation focused exclusively on clean energy economy products and services. LIFE has a strong track record of picking early-stage technology companies and helping them on the road to success.
The organisation works with entrepreneurs and providers of capital to build the businesses that will be the future of energy.
The NNFCC specialises in research into areas such as biolubricants, plant-derived pharmaceuticals and biopolymers. This leading European centre of research in the field of alternative fuels is an independent source of information on the use and implementation of non-food crop products and technologies and plays a major role in the development of non-food crop supply chains.
SUWIC is a leading international research centre on the thermal treatment of waste. It has a worldwide reputation for innovation in combustion, gasification and pyrolysis of biomass/ waste and the associated electrical power generation systems.
The Energy and Power Technology Centre is a collaboration between the Universities of Leeds and Sheffield and is one of only two such centres in Europe working on combustion research.
As a UK hub of energy and power research, the centre works with industry partners including Smiths Aerospace, BOC, Rolls-Royce, E.ON, RWE npower, British Gas and Alstrom. Research focuses on how existing systems will work when fuel characteristics change, such as the move from oil-based to bio-diesels.
The Earth Energy and Environment Institute at the University of Leeds takes a multidisciplinary approach to the challenges associated with the use and management of energy.
It builds on the University’s expertise in areas such as biomass and waste, combustion, sustainable energy, low emission energy sources and emissions monitoring and modelling.
The Immobilisation Science Laboratory conducts research into the problem of radioactive waste immobilisation. It is also expanding its research portfolio to cover the disposal of toxic waste.
The Centre, based in the Department of Biology at the University of York, is focused on realising the potential of plant and microbial-based renewable resources through gene discovery.
The Hull Environment Research Institute’s key objective is to become a centre of excellence for research across the interdisciplinary span of environmental science, bringing together researchers with complimentary and compatible skills to work on a variety of environmental issues irrespective of discipline and departmental boundaries.
Access to academic industry expertise
To help businesses tap into the specialist skills and cutting edge expertise from our universities, a unique network; – the Centres of Industrial Collaboration (http://www.yorkshirecic.com) – were created,which bridge the gap between industry and university expertise. These include:
The ETCIC offers valuable environmental solutions through a combination of the latest technology, analytical facilities and a vast pool of knowledge underpinned by ongoing R&D.
The Green Chemistry Centre is helping companies to comply with legislative developments such as REACH, through the manufacture of products that reduce or replace the production of hazardous materials whilst still being commercially viable.