Four businesses have been awarded funding for Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) that will allow them to benefit from a new range of expertise and will encourage their business to grow.
Part-funded by Innovate UK, KTPs bridge the gap between industry and academic knowledge, which will in turn allow businesses to grow with the help of University of Lincoln, and its academic experts.
Warden Agri, Sanctuary, METIS Aerospace and Streets Heaver, will work closely with specialist academics from University of Lincoln, known as Associates, to help innovate and grow their businesses.
Three of the businesses are based in the Lincoln area, except for Sanctuary, which is a Worcester-based company that delivers sustainable housing solutions.
Their project will focus on the need to innovate home design and construction methods to respond to global challenges of climate change, while creating affordable, sustainable homes.
Stephen Pretlove, head of Lincoln School of Architecture, said: “We are delighted to be collaborating with the Sanctuary Group on this timely project, which brings together academic expertise from Lincoln, in housing design and construction, sustainability, waste, and low carbon strategies, with one of the UK’s largest and leading providers of social and private housing.
“The project provides a unique opportunity for academic and industrial cooperation, which will benefit both the housing sector, and our academic understanding of the challenging issues that we all face as we move towards a zero-carbon built environment.”
Colleen Eccles, Sanctuary’s head of Place Shaping, said: “There are increasing pressures on the construction industry to create new homes that are both sustainable and affordable, and this innovative project will allow us to identify new approaches to development work that will shape future building.”
One of the local businesses benefiting from Knowledge Transfer Partnerships is Warden Agri, who are aiming to develop safe and sustainable food waste products, and to extend the current business ecosystem to include processing, manufacturing and validation of these opportunities.
Johanna Buitelaar-Warden, director of Warden-Agri, said: “The project will allow us to embed a process for developing novel food ingredients from waste and by products in the food and feed supply chain, evolving our business to the next level.
“The Knowledge Transfer Partnership has set out a really helpful framework and we have already recruited an outstanding graduate who is coming to us from Nestle SA.
“She has a balance of both academic and business skills; very much mirroring the essence of the KTP.”
