Vital funding to kick-start business-academic partnerships has been secured, to support new products, processes, services and workforce practices.

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) Innovation Voucher programme is managed by Interface, and designed to establish new partnerships between Scottish businesses, universities and colleges.

The funding enables small and medium sized businesses, including third and public sector organisations, to team up with academics and students in Scotland’s world-leading universities and colleges.

The Standard and Student Placement Innovation Vouchers offer between £1k-£7.5k and act as a springboard for businesses to explore and develop new ideas with academic expertise in all sectors, including health, transport, food and drink, creative industries and energy.

Since the programme began, over £11m has been invested through 2,274 Innovation Vouchers, leading to more than 11,000 new or improved products, processes, services and workforce practices.

Laura Goodfellow, Interface’s Director, said: “We are delighted to announce that the Scottish Funding Council has committed funding to the Innovation Voucher for the year ahead, enabling many more businesses and academic partners to work together to develop innovative solutions and create economic, societal and environmental impact across Scotland.”

Helen Cross, SFC’s Director of Investment and Research, added: “Innovation Vouchers are an incredibly effective way of forging partnerships between businesses and Scotland’s universities and colleges.
“The collaborations are a fantastic way of combining academic expertise with the know-how and ambition of entrepreneurs wanting to create new products, services, and processes.
“There have been some incredible examples of success in the last 15 years, and today’s announcement is a commitment to further successes in the future.”

Junaid Malik, Founder and Director of Deep-tech company Quantatrace was matched by Interface with Dr William Peveler, University of Glasgow, together with the financial support of an Innovation Voucher, they developed specialised technology to combat counterfeiting in pharmaceuticals and global supply chains.

Junaid said: “When we approached Interface, we needed more than an introduction to a university. We needed the right scientist, the right facilities, and a working relationship that could move at the pace of an early-stage company. Interface delivered all three, and without them we simply couldn’t have got this level of expertise onboard. From the first technical discussion, working with Dr Peveler’s lab felt less like a contracted service and more like a shared technical problem we were solving together.”

Read the full case study here.

Alex Shkrebelo, co-founder and CEO of Xplore Intelligence attributed an Innovation Voucher as a central building block for validating AI technology with Edinburgh Napier University.

“Working with Interface allowed us to fast-track rigorous, science-led validation of our technology with Edinburgh Napier – cutting months off our development timeline.

“Backed by SFC funding, this helped us not just keep pace with a fast-moving market, but move ahead of it – building globally relevant, UK-leading AI technology and earning a place in Tech Nation’s Breakout 50 – the UK’s top 50 most promising tech startups.”

Watch the video here.

Further information on Innovation Vouchers and other funding programmes managed by Interface to support research and innovation can be found here.