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We are one of the most active Universities in Scotland in terms of hosting successful KTPs.
Knowledge Transfer Partnership is a UK Government funded knowledge transfer mechanism designed to increase the competitiveness of the UK's industrial base. Companies can benefit from up to a 67% grant.
Ivan Wood and Sons Ltd. and Abertay were originally partnered by Interface, Interface introduction stemmed from Business Gateway and Food & Health Innovation Service support to the company. An enquiry was sent and Abertay was established as the preferred University partner to provide the company with advice on product nutritional and shelf life information. Abertay has a reputation as knowledge exchange hub for the Scottish food and drink industry (with Food Innovation @ Abertay), where expertise from across food science is available. Similarly Abertay has Urban Water Technology Centre (UWCT) and Abertay Centre for Environment (ACE) which allowed the company to tap into sources outside of Abertay’s food science skills. Due to the nature of this project, Abertay was the perfect fit for Ivan Wood and Sons Ltd.
After several meetings with the lead academic partner Dr Jonathan Wilkin, Food Innovation @ Abertay, Abertay University, it was established that there was a need to support the business with New Product Development particularly with the newly created prototype filtration device, the use of this product produced a by waste which Jon was keen to investigate it further use (in food products) and the filtration design and functionality was of interest to Prof Joe Akunna (UWCT and ACE).
As a result of these meetings, the company and university partner applied for and were awarded a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP). The KTP started in January 2015, and within the first year a redesign of the filtering system was undertaken through identification of possible demand which was observed for a smaller version of the system, this was deemed to have a positive impact within the Scottish food preparation industry (from catering trade to takeaways). The system has been validated and as a result the value of the partnership has really become apparent. The work Abertay completed through this KTP regarding the validation of the system, has enables Peel Tech Ltd (a spin out from Ivan Wood and Sons Ltd.) to engage a third party with the necessary information for selling the equipment. The Academic partners are looking at publishing this data in an academic journal which will further confirm that the system is effective. Without this validation exercise, the market would not trust that the equipment would remove the products it was intended for and therefore it would be a difficult sale, this information has provided robust data for the company.
We have won a variety of awards for this, the project was graded as Outstanding by Innovate UK, this project won Innovation of the Year at Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards (2017) and Lee-Anne McGee (the KTP associate) won ‘Building Skills’ award for her work on the KTP and how it transformed Ivan Wood and Sons.