Applied Knowledge Exchange

Glasgow based Sistemic won the Nexxus Most Promising Young Life Science Company of the Year (West) Award in front of an audience of around 130 life scientists gathered to celebrate local life science achievements.

The innovative Scottish SME has set up a sales facility in the United States, won its first major pharmaceutical contract, secured its first EU and US customers, been awarded a SMART Research & Development Grant, filed three new patents and launched three new products in less than a year.

Professor Chris Hillier, CEO, is former CEO of Biopta which he and Dr David Bunton spun out of Glasgow Caledonian University.  

The company has a core focus on microRNA profiling and the biological interpretation of those profiles in context, allowing a greater understanding of the biology and therapeutic landscape.

Mark Anderson, head of European Programmes, represented Glasgow Caledonian University at the Triple Helix VIII International Conference on University, Industry and Government Linkages in Madrid, Spain.

Mr Anderson presented two workshops: the first gave an overview on knowledge transfer offices need to streamline and focus their activities not only formally but also structurally in order to create synergies for efficient and effective innovation at a national and international level in line with the Lisbon Strategy and 2020 Vision. The second workshop focused particularly on the GCU-led project KickStart which is developing and establishing Innovation Centres in Latin America.

As part of his presentation, Mr Anderson reminded participants that “We must learn to contextualise our activities and look beyond a narrow approach to innovation that focuses solely on patent activity, spin-off creation and pure commercialisation. University knowledge transfer has a great deal more to offer”.

Triple Helix is a field of international research that centres around the triangular relationship between University, Business and Government to aid prosperity. The main theme of this year’s conference was Triple Helix in the Development of Cities of Knowledge, Expanding Communities and Connecting Regions. This year’s conference was organised by the International Institute of Triple Helix – IITH and hosted by La Salle Innovation Park.

Glasgow Caledonian University’s Applied Knowledge Exchange will be showcasing its expertise in environmental issues at the Sustainable Scotland Network Conference 2010. The SSN conference will take place on 4th November at Dynamic Earth and will include speakers such as John Swinney MSP and Lady Susan Rice of Lloyds Banking Group Scotland.

The Applied Knowledge Exchange will exhibit with colleagues from the Caledonian Environment Centre, CIC Start Online and Sustainable Food & Drink.

The Committee on Climate Change – the Governments’ official advisors – have called for a “step change in pace” if we are to meet the UK carbon emissions reduction targets; a message that was reinforced in the Committee’s advice to Scottish Ministers in February 2010. The Climate Change (Scotland) Act, as well as committing the country to delivering a 42% reduction in emissions by 2020, also places duties on public bodies relating to climate change that come into force on 1 January 2011.

Supported by the Scottish Government, COSLA, SOLACE-Scotland and SEPA, the SSN Conference is the sustainable development and climate change conference for local government officials and elected members, and all those who engage with local authorities in the process of making Scotland more sustainable.

For more information about our sustainability programmes in Scotland, please contact the Applied Knowledge Exchange on 0141 331 3189 or appliedknowledgeexchange@gcu.ac.uk.

Here are the winners of the Scottish Leadership Awards 2010.

Glasgow Caledonian University’s Applied Knowledge Exchange sponsored the Female Business Leader of the Year Award.

For more information about how GCU works with business on education programmes, consultancy and research, and social innovation, give the Applied Knowledge Exchange a ring on 0141 331 3189.

Dr Rabinder Buttar, President and CEO of Glasgow-based global Clinical Research Organisation, ClinTec International was named Female Business Leader of the Year at the 2010 Scottish Leadership Awards held last night in Glasgow.

The award is sponsored by Glasgow Caledonian University’s Applied Knowledge Exchange and was presented by GCU Principal, Professor Pamela Gillies.

The Scottish Leadership Awards recognises the achievements of Scotland’s private and public sectors leaders and has just recently been launched by Scottish Business Insider magazine.

Rivals for the category included Michelle Mone, founder and co-owner of MJM International and Audrey Baxter, Executive Chairman of Baxters, the international food company.

The award ceremony was held at the Grand Central Hotel in Glasgow with Lord Ashdown present as guest speaker.

Dr Buttar was recognised by the Scottish Leadership Awards for her unique business acumen and entrepreneurial spirit in building one of Britain’s fastest growing privately owned tech companies; 27th in the league of top 100 companies in Britain – Sunday Times Microsoft Tech Track 100.

On winning the award, Dr Buttar stated: “I am honored to receive this award and see it as a great reflection not just of my work but that of our Senior Corporate Director, Bobby Bal and the experienced global management team supporting me. Leadership is about motivating people and bringing out the best in them to deliver challenging company goals. I am proud to have created an organisation in which employees based in Scotland plus 40 countries globally are passionate about their work and have an uncompromising attitude to deliver nothing short of excellence in all they do for our pharmaceutical and biotech clients.”

For more information, please contact the Applied Knowledge Exhange on 0141 331 3189.

Samantha MacLean, Programme Leader for the MSc Human Resource Management at Glasgow Caledonian University, presented an award to Kelly Rossi of First People Solutions at the Scottish Recruitment Awards in Glasgow this month.

Rossi picked up the award for Individual Volume Specialist of the Year and won the award against a colleague and a representative from Search Consultancy at a glittering ceremony at the Hilton Hotel.

Glasgow Caledonian University completed the research for the Scottish Business Insider Awards, using the expertise of Samantha MacLean and the Caledonian Business School to design the categories for the awards and oversee the research process for the nominations.

This year’s Scottish Environmental Technology Network (SETN) annual conference will be held at Glasgow Caledonian University on 15th June 2010.   

The environmental technology conference is this year a collaboration between SETN and the Caledonian Environment Centre at Glasgow Caledonian University.

Caledonian Environment Centre will be supported by GCU’s business gateway, the Applied Knowledge Exchange.

Funded by the SEEKIT programme of the Scottish Government, the event is free for SMEs to attend and will inform businesses about developments in the Scottish environmental technology sector, EU environmental legislation and R&D tax credit workshops.

SETN provides services to Scottish SMEs to improve their competitiveness in the environmental sector including areas such as contaminated land assessment & remediation, waste management, resource recovery, water and wastewater treatment, sustainable urban drainage systems and environmental management.

The Caledonian Environment Centre offers a dedicated team of professionals with expertise in waste resource management, carbon management, environmental sustainability and bioenergy.

Simon Glen, project officer at the Caledonian Environment Centre at GCU, will be speaking at the event, along with representatives from Zero Waste Scotland, EAE Ltd and Environmental Law Chambers.

SETN is led by the Contaminated Land Assessment & Remediation Research Centre based at The University of Edinburgh and works with research base groups from around Scotland.

Glasgow Caledonian University’s Applied Knowledge Exchange was at the S2S Social Enterprise Fair this week. We enjoyed chatting with Social Enterprises, other universities and inviduals about the growing social enterprise sector.

Our PgC Social Enterprise course was a hot topic of the day!

Find out more from wwww.gcu.ac.uk/business or give us a ring on 0141 331 3139 for a copy of our promotional DVD, which features Mel Young of the Big Issue and Homeless World Cup.

IMechE/ICE/IET/IChemE 

BLOODHOUND THE 1000 MPH

CHALLENGE

Glasgow Caledonian University and Scottish Power are co-sponsoring an exciting event featuring John Piper, Chief Engineer on the JCB land speed record car, talking about Britain’s latest attempt at the world land speed record.

The lecture will concentrate on the Bloodhound car, but will also talk about how the challenger cars tend to be very different and therefore there is no need to be secretive about the technology. The talk will include a general overview of the aims of the project, then the story of the design so far with some great visuals on the stress analysis work carried out by Arup.

Come to the event on: 22nd April 2010:
5:30pm for 6:30pm
Saltire Centre/Carnegie Lecture Theatre
Glasgow Caledonian University
Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow, G4 0BA
For more information and to register your interest please contact:
Andrew Cowell on a.cowell@gcal.ac.uk
Find out more about the event here

The Applied Knowledge Exchange sponsored a successful Social Enterprise colloquium here at GCU this week.

We joined special guest speakers Karen Gilligan from Kibble, Tony Traynor from the Royal Bank of Scotland, Roana Dickson from GCU’s School of Health and Heather Sim from Space Unlimited.

Our speakers talked with our MBA and fourth year students about the development of Social Enterprises - a hot topic for the Scottish Government. Very interesting stuff! We will be at the S2S fair to get involved in promoting Social Enterprise next month.