Centre to boost industrial sensor and imaging systems 24 April 2013

The University of Glasgow is to create what it describes as a world-leading sensor and imaging systems centre, following receipt of a £10 million grant from the Scottish Funding Council.

Its Innovation Centre Sensor and Imaging Systems (IC-SIS) will work with industry on projects to develop new technologies. Already, 11 other Scottish universities and 22 industry partners have pledged support.

Supporters include Freescale, Texas Instruments, IBM, SELEX ES, ST Microelectronics, Thales Optronics, BAE Systems, BP, and FMC Technologies. Other confirmed industry partners include Scottish and Southern Energy, and Scottish Water, as well as Optos, Toshiba Medical, and Gas Sensing Solutions.

The IC-SIS is one of three Innovation Centres officially announced yesterday (23 April 2013) by first minister of Scotland Alex Salmond.

The others are the University of Glasgow's Stratified Medicine Scotland Innovation Centre and the University of Edinburgh's Digital Health and Care Innovation Centre.

IC-SIS intends to deliver 150 collaborative R&D projects and bring new products to market over the course of its initial five-year funding period.

Economic projections suggest the investment of £10m from SFC will encourage industry to invest in innovation. Indeed, Professor Steve Beaumont, vice-principal research and enterprise at the university, believes the work of the centre could add between £374m and £596m to the Scottish economy.

"Scotland has a very strong high-tech sector in areas such as aerospace, energy and biotechnology, all of which rely on advanced sensing, sensor systems and processing to develop new products and secure their economic growth," he observes.

"Over the last 15 years, the complexity of sensor systems has grown, creating challenges for traditional product development models, but the potential to overcome these problems by integrating Scotland's research base with the sensor industry is remarkably good," he continues.

"Our aim is for IC-SIS to become the predominant source of expertise in sensor and imaging system research and development in Scotland and beyond. We've already made inroads into partnerships with a number of public and private organisations who have identified projects which would benefit from input from the IC-SIS."

Brian Tinham

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