13 November 2008

Companies will have to innovate or die in the current economic climate

Innovation Showcase - Tues 18th November

A new business event in Dundee will help companies develop new ideas encourage them to make better use of their expertise and facilities.

High profile representatives from industry, government and the world of research will be converging on Dundee for the event which is being held by The Universities of Dundee and Abertay, together with the Scottish Crop Research Institute.

Businesses from across Scotland are being given the opportunity to attend the free event, which is being held during national Enterprise Week.

Sessions of presentations and displays from researchers will provide a unique chance for businesses to find out how innovation can deliver long term success as well as how to access funding and support.

One of the keynote speakers at the event will be Dundee born Ken Keir, who has spent his career in the automotive industry and has risen to the position of Managing Director of Honda (UK) and Executive Vice-President of Honda Motor Europe.

Also featuring on the programme will be Jim Mather, Scotland's Minister for Enterprise Energy and Tourism, who will deliver one of the keynote speeches.

The event has also attracted award-winning broadcaster and business expert Peter Day, who presents Radio 4’s 'In Business' and the BBC World Service programme 'Global Business'.

The event is being organised by the Innovation Portal, which promotes co-operation between businesses and the Tayside research base. Innovation Portal Manager Jamie Henderson commented on the fantastic line up of speakers and a diverse range of expertise and technologies on display.

'Companies will be able to discuss directly with the academic staff how their research expertise can be applied to business projects. We have 20 academics with expertise that has application in sectors as diverse as food and drink, security, product design and medical devices.'

We are also keen to establish matches in non obvious areas-for example our expertise in motion analysis can be applied to the design of sports equipment and psychologists who could apply understanding of human cognition to help electronic companies design accessible interactive products'.

Jamie added that the showcase is a key event for the Innovation Portal - which has been operating for the last year. As well as brokering introductions between academia and business the Innovation Portal has already funded several feasibility studies between companies and academics.

The event will take place on Tuesday November 18, in the Dalhousie Building at the University of Dundee.

Further information can be obtained from the Innovation Portal at www.innovationportal.co.uk.

Notes for editors

Background
The Innovation Portal
The Innovation Portal has been established to promote and facilitate productive knowledge and technology transfer between the three project Partners (University of Dundee, University of Abertay Dundee and the Scottish Crop Research Institute) and Scottish Small & Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs).

The Innovation Portal provides a central point of contact for Scottish SMEs and can assist companies in accessing relevant sources of funding together with the relevant resources, expertise and facilities available within the three Partners.

The Innovation Portal hosts a series of workshops and events to bring academics and businesses together to explore and discuss the innovation needs of specific key sectors within Tayside . It also operates a small grants scheme to fund collaborations between academics and Tayside SMEs to explore potential opportunities for innovative new projects.

The Innovation Portal is funded by the Scottish Government’ s Scottish Executive Expertise, Knowledge & Innovation Transfer programme (SEEKIT) and European Development Fund (ERDF)

The Innovation Showcase will run for 2 days, Day 1 (Tues 18th November) is aimed at a business audience. Day 2 is aimed at students from the Dundee and Angus areas and will introduce students to the process and significance of innovation through a programme of presentations, interactive sessions & competitions and an exhibition of academic expertise with relevance to industry

Ken Keir, Honda UK and Europe
Ken Keir, Managing Director (Honda UK), Exec VP, Honda Europe was born and brought up in Dundee. Educated as an engineer Mr Keir has spent his career in the car industry with British Leyland, Peugeot and Renault. From 1993 Ken Keir has been Honda (UK) Director and General Manager. This coincided with the company’s huge investment in the UK and the start up of the company’s car plant in Swindon.

Mr Keir has played a considerable part in Honda’s recent success, restructuring the company to place more emphasis on customer satisfaction to achieve long terms sales growth for the company. In 1998 Mr Keir was promoted to managing director Honda (UK) responsible for corporate matters, cars, motorcycles and power equipment. In 2002 he also became the first European to be appointed as Executive Vice-President, Honda Motor Europe with additional responsibility for the development of European sales networks.

Peter Day, BBC
Peter Day was born in Norfolk and educated at St Edmund Hall Oxford, where he took a degree in English. Following IPC newspaper training he worked on the Daily Record in Glasgow. In 1974 he joined BBC Radio News in London and from 1975 specialised in business, City and money news as the collapse of the £ turned economics into a daily front page story. In 1990 he went to Zurich as business editor of the European Business Channel, a visionary but failed attempt to produce international business television across the Continent.

Peter Day returned to London to become business correspondent of BBC News in the summer of 1990. Since 1988, he’s been the presenter of the Radio 4 programme In Business with a mandate to seek out the trends which are about to influence the working world and make them interesting to listeners who may not have realised they cared about the subject. The Times has called IN BUSINESS 'the best business-related programme on either television or radio'. He also presents a BBC World Service programme called GLOBAL BUSINESS, transmitted almost every weekend of the year. In November 2007 the American journalism professor Jeff Jarvis wrote in his much-read blog BuzzMachine: 'The BBC’s amazing Peter Day is the best reporter I know on the radio.'

Peter Day has thrice won the Harold Wincott award for broadcast business journalism, and in 2005 he was given a lifetime achievement award by the Work Foundation.

For media enquiries contact:
Anna Day
Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384768
E-MAIL: a.c.day@dundee.ac.uk