business planning

CLOSING DATE 22nd October 2017

The Inventor Prize launched on 9 August 2017 by NESTA is open to products that relate to any issue as long as that product helps to make people’s lives better, thereby helping to tackle a social issue affecting the UK.

To be eligible entrants will have to have a working model and be able to show that their invention will help to tackle an important societal issue.

£50,000 will be awarded to the finalist that best demonstrates meeting the judging criteria. There will be two runner up prizes of £15,000 and £5,000.
The finalists will be supported to develop and test their products.

The Business Innovation Centre’s New Product Development Grant has now been increased to just under £10,000

This grant financed through the European Regional Development Fund will help Staffordshire based B2B companies pay for external expertise to help them research and develop a new product or service.

Since the European funded project was launched in April 2016 the BIC has awarded over £400,000 to local businesses to employ experts such as Product Designers; Market Researchers; Patent & Trade Mark Attorneys; Testing Facilities and E-commerce specialists to help them with their innovations.

Thirty Five new products or services have been supported to date including the following which have recently been launched to the market:

• A mobile phone adapter and technology to take photographs of endoscopic images by Endoscope-i from Lichfield company – www.endoscope-i.com
• An adjustable line of sight camera which captures what you see from your perspective. Aim Cam – a Staffordshire Moorlands company – www.aimcam.com
• Radiator fixing kit to allow radiators to be easily reclined without removal from the wall to allow painting or maintenance. Rotarad from Stoke on Trent www.rotarad.com
• A queue watching phone app to allow people to track queues typically at barbers, car parks, hospitals etc Queue Watch – a Stoke on Trent company – www.queuewatch.co.uk

The BIC’s Grant will represent 40% of the overall project expenditure and so will cover project values up to £25,000 whereby up to £10,000 could be paid back to the company on satisfactory completion of the outsourced work.

The next funding panel to consider applications for the £10,000 grant will be on
11 August 2017 and companies should express interest on the BIC’s website at: www.thebic.co.uk/research-collaboration-grants-and-support

Further information about the BIC and its activities can be found on their website www.thebic.co.uk

CLOSING DATE 17th September 2017

CALLING NEWCASTLE UNDER LYME ORGANISATIONS

£1,500 is up for Grabs for winning a Business Boost Award. Entering and Winning Business Awards is a great confidence booster for businesses and worth a little time and effort in applying.

The BIC is sponsoring these awards for the first time this year as they introduce the Innovation Award

So go on have a go at entering and we at the BIC will be only too pleased to help you with your application

The BIC has been sponsoring these Awards since the year 2000. Winning such awards is a great accolade for any business. It’s a proud moment for a company and its staff and it’s a great marketing statement for a company and could easily bring you new business

If you need any assistance in entering please let us know. Entries close on 16 December 2016.

Please find below the link to the article on the Sentinel Website:

Innovate UK have funds to help companies research and develop innovative technological products where there is a technical risk involved.

Recently Innovate UK restricted applications to four key areas of industry but they currently have ONE Open Competition where companies from any sector can apply but you must be looking to solve or prove a technological risk and the good news is that their contribution is up to 70% of your overall expenditure.

Details below but do note the closing date of 31 August 2016: