Heriot-Watt has been announced as one of the winners in a new programme to help accelerate the commercialisation of great ideas from British universities.
The Transport Systems Catapult
The Transport Systems Catapult (TSC) has awarded £1 million for activities across 14 UK universities to improve collaboration with business, both major companies and SMEs. The projects will focus on developing products and solutions that make transport more seamless and connected, aimed at the global Intelligent Mobility market, estimated to be worth £900bn per year by 2025.
The Centre for Sustainable Road Freight
The Centre for Sustainable Road Freight at Heriot-Watt will form a partnership with the Centre for Transport Research at Aberdeen University to establish a Scottish Centre of Excellence for TSC, building upon interlocking skills in the area of Intelligent Mobility for an interactive system of person and freight movement.
Overall funding for the partnership is £252k, with £102k for activities facilitated by Heriot-Watt. The partnership objectives include:
- Facilitation of knowledge exchange activities between academics at Aberdeen and Heriot-Watt Universities, TSC and the industry
- Development of undergraduate and postgraduate and PhD students with the transferable multi-disciplinary skill sets necessary to fully engage with emerging intelligent mobility systems
- Creation of a Scottish knowledge network, and hosting outreach activities to engage industry and government partners in the development of an integrated intelligent mobility framework
- Formation of a communications network for facilitating ongoing sharing of outputs and impacts from project activities with Aberdeen, Heriot-Watt, and TSC.
Proposed activities include a seminar series, workshops, undergraduate and postgraduate internships, a briefing paper series and the secondment of academic staff.