De Montfort University has launched a new programme to link their academics with startups to help solve their problems.
QUIDS – Quick Innovation Developers – was devised by DMU’s knowledge exchange team Dr Rhianna Briars and Darsheet Chauhan to give academics more experience of working with industry and vice versa.
Five projects have been given seed funding working with different companies and academics across the university. They are:
- Developing an augmented reality training tool to detect sepsis more quickly in young children
- Building software which can assess the green credentials of suppliers, helping the company to choose more environmentally-aware firms
- Working with an engineering company to design a microscope which can analyse materials at very cold temperatures
- Investigating diversification into sustainable sportswear
- Exploring whether textile assembly can be added to a very automated workflow
Dr Briars said:
“Creating a mechanism for local small organisations to work with our academics and benefit from our knowledge, on a quicker and flexible basis has been really exciting.
“It allows partnerships to try things out; building trust and potentially informing longer term projects. It also creates opportunities to work with organisations and on projects that would struggle to fit within the KTP funding criteria but are still valuable collaborative innovation projects.”
Want to find out more? Email businessservices@dmu.ac.uk