Funding supports over 200 Yorkshire businesses

Small and medium-sized businesses across the Yorkshire and Humber region have eluded the economic downturn due to innovation after securing backing from the £3.1m Yorkshire Innovation Fund.

Since the Yorkshire Innovation Fund was set up in 2013, the initiative has supported over 200 SMEs in the Yorkshire and Humber region.

Among the first to benefit was Sue Overton Applied Practice, a York-based early years consultancy. Sue Overton, the managing director, applied to the fund for help developing a range of interactive, drama-based online learning tools to meet the development needs of the UK’s workforce of Early Years managers and practitioners.

Having identified a need for technical expertise in learning through IT, Sue applied for £41k worth of business support from the fund, which soon established a working partnership with Dr Mike O’Dea, a senior lecturer in computer science York St John University.

With Mike’s technical expertise of learning through IT and computer science education, Sue developed the concept of soap opera style film scenarios which provided a practical learning application for managers in nurseries and other Early Years environments.

The innovative learning concepts were then tested by university’s faculty of Education and Theology.

Last year, ue Overton Applied Practice saw a 150% in turnover and a further increase of 60% is forecast for 2015. Last month, the company moved to larger premises at Easingwold Business Park. Three new training products (tackling recruitment, whistle-blowing and child-minding) are currently under development and Sue is exploring opportunities to provide training to practitioners in youth offending and social care.

Sue explained: “Thanks to the Yorkshire Innovation Fund and York St John University, we’ve been able to significantly boost the level of expertise within our business.”

Part-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the Yorkshire Innovation Fund brought together ten of the region’s higher education institutions to help the region’s small and medium sized enterprises to develop ideas for new products, services or processes by funding collaborative projects with the region’s universities to boost business growth.

Among the other businesses to benefit from the fund were East Yorkshire firm Technostics, which specialises in the research and development of medical products. Cottingham-based Technostics secured £41k of business support. This funded expertise from the University of Hull to help widen use of Technostics signature product, Peptest, which detects the presence of aggressive stomach enzymes.

Furthermore, Skipton-based Principle Healthcare were also awarded £41k of business support which they used to develop two new products including a formula to prevent loss of muscle mass in the elderly which is due for launch in 2016.

Suzanne Emmett, director of the Yorkshire Innovation Fund, commented: “Our region is a major economic powerhouse and The Yorkshire Innovation Fund helped our community of dynamic SMEs to innovate by tapping into the specialist expertise of Yorkshire’s universities.

“In a very short time the Yorkshire Innovation Fund demonstrated the significant results that can be achieved when universities and businesses work together.”

Emily Wolton, executive director of Yorkshire Universities which represents all the higher education institutions in Yorkshire , added: “This Yorkshire Innovation Fund project was genuinely unique in that it enabled a multi-partnership approach and a bespoke response to business needs. Businesses were signposted to the most relevant higher education expertise and, in many cases, worked with more than one university. The project created an excellent platform for each university partner to showcase its expertise and for all the parties to reap the benefits of working closely together to benefit from their respective resources and specialisms.”

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