Centres of Industrial Collaboration (CIC)

In 2003, funded by Yorkshire Forward, The Innovation Partnership Ltd undertook a review of manufacturing throughout the Region, identifying where university support for the sector could be developed or enhanced. This resulted in the design, mobilisation and launch of Centres of Industrial Collaboration (CIC) projects in 2004. The CIC project was a £6.8m exercise which took on board learning and best practice from the CETIC programme and won several EU awards for business support and knowledge transfer.

Having established the project and facilitated accreditation of the Centres, TIP was retained by Yorkshire Forward on a monthly contract to provide one-to-one business intelligence and support. To this end, we undertook a range of activities, including assisting with the recruitment of commercial staff, investigations into key sectors, market communications planning, searching out and creating new relationships within and beyond the region and even exit strategies with some notable success, such as the Centre for Position Technologies at Huddersfield University.