The Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards 2018 has announced its winners, with a unique technology for the construction industry, a technique for new drug discovery, and a novel method of recycling print toner powder used in art, animal medicines, and construction being among them.
The Innovation of the Year award went to Norscot Joinery Ltd, a family-owned business that builds kit homes. In partnership with the University of Strathclyde, the company researched and developed virtual reality show home software that combines the advanced interactive visualisation of buildings with Building Information Modelling (BIM) data for the first time. Clients will be able to immerse themselves into a house before it is built, interact with the design process, and better understand the costs and the design changes of it.
The Social and Environmental Impact award went to Moock Environmental Solutions Ltd and the University of Dundee for a project to recycle print toner powder by making it soluble for use in the art and building industries, and animal medical treatments, through the potential to waterproof material.
The Outstanding Contribution to Knowledge Exchange award went to Professor Bull Buchanan from Edinburgh Napier University, who conducts many collaborative project and industry-led events and engagements which have contributed greatly to growing a thriving Scottish cyber security community, leading to improvements in business resilience and incident response, and to innovations and real patient impact in health and social care.
These annual awards are run by Interface and are a celebration of the impact made by business-academic partnerships. This year 300 people attended the event that took place at the Royal Bank of Scotland Conference Centre in Edinburgh.
“The sheer diversity of business-academic partnerships in this year’s awards is impressive and testament to innovation thriving in the business-academic community. The winners have great potential to impact on society, the environment and the economy, whilst many of the partnerships demonstrate a variety of unexpected collaborations, for example, matching a joinery company with virtual reality experts,” concluded Dr Siobhan Jordan, director of Interface.
