“Businesses need great people and new ideas – and that is what universities provide. Employable graduates from Aston, mostly with real work experience through placements, are an obvious output from our university but bright young people can also be part of your business through undergraduate placements, Masters projects, research projects, knowledge transfer partnerships and in many other ways – it is worth talking to us about how we can supply you with great new ideas – with legs attached!
"Aston University has a track record of carrying out exploitable research that is readily translated from an academic world into real products and services and that provides a catalyst to businesses to do thing differently. Bringing together the knowledge base of university academics with real challenges faced by businesses will yield new solutions and new insights – innovation comes from trying new things – give it a go!”
Pace Systems
Pace Systems International Ltd is one of
Europe’s leading manufacturers and suppliers of covert security and
surveillance equipment. Their core business is specialising in the
manufacturing of covert surveillance vehicles of all types, and providing total
solutions for integrated covert camera and audio systems. They are a preferred
supplier to government, government agencies, law enforcement agencies,
emergency services, and the defence sectors. They have teamed up with Aston
University to carry out cutting-edge research and development programmes with
the help of a Knowledge transfer Partnership (KTP) Associate.
How has
the link between Aston University and PACE Systems been beneficial?
Through the KTP scheme Pace Systems has been
able to continue to invest in Research and Development during the recession.
The KTP Associate, Syed, holds both Bachelor and Master of Science degrees. He
was named a Young
Business Leader of Tomorrow and has been involved in innovative and
exciting design work. The 25 year old steered the company through the ISO 9001
Quality Management process. He is now leading projects in UAV's (Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles) and their civil and military applications, which include
potentially lifesaving aspects.
What is
different about this project?
The nature of the work carried out by Pace
Systems is very interesting - they develop specialist surveillance equipment and work with both the police
and the military.
Syed himself is a very
accomplished design engineer and the match with Pace has been exceptionally
good. The project was recognised in the
Innovation and Technology Awards last November and Syed was recently named the
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships’ (KTP) Young Business Leader of Tomorrow. The national award was for his outstanding achievements in
cutting edge design technology which resulted in a 50% increase in the
company’s international sales of new products over the past two years.
Further
information:
Mr Syed Kazmi, Aston University: 07515
565961 or kazmiss@aston.ac.uk
Les Leek, Pace
Systems: 01788
522536 or les.leek@pace-systems.co.uk
Insight Health
A cleaning product capable of tackling
hospital ‘superbugs’ is being created by Aston University’s Life and Health
Sciences and healthcare company Insight Health Limited.
This Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP)
project, aims to develop the commercial formulation of a liquid ‘germination
solution’ to be used in the elimination of hospital acquired infections,
particularly Clostridium difficile.
The scheme combines the research expertise of
Aston’s microbiologists and Insight Health Limited’s infrastructure and
marketing knowledge of the health sector. The partnership will allow swift
transfer from drawing board to hospital implementation, converting the results
of laboratory scale trials into safe, commercially viable products.
How has
the link between Aston University and Insign Health been beneficial?
Aston University microbiologists have a
wealth of research experience associated with the diagnosis and prevention of
hospital acquired infections, including MRSA, bacterial biofilms, catheter
related sepsis and acinetobacter. Combining Aston’s research expertise with
Insight Health Limited’s sector knowledge will see the development of
innovative new products, which will further strengthen the company’s links
within the healthcare and manufacturing sectors. This KTP collaboration will
hopefully contribute to reducing the C. difficile burden.
What is
different about this project?
This new solution will potentially contribute
to reducing infection rates and deaths from C.difficile, and associated NHS
financial costs.
Clostridium difficile is the most common
hospital acquired infection and is contracted by approximately 50,000 patients
annually, causing approximately 6,500 deaths. This new solution, combined with
developed cleansing regimes will potentially contribute to reducing levels of
infection, which in turn would reduce the mortality rate. It has also been
calculated that each infection costs approximately £4,000 to treat; making a
reduction in infection rates have a significant financial impact on hospital
trusts. In addition, the patients’ stay in hospital would be reduced which
would minimise the potential for acquiring other infections and increase the
overall throughput of patients due to improved bed availability.
Further
information:
Dr Tony Worthington, Aston University: t.worthington@aston.ac.uk or 0121 204 3951
Insight Health Limited: John Rawlinson j.rawlinson@insightbio.com or 0800 073 3133
Scout7
Scout7 Limited
provides scouting and recruitment management solutions to professional football
clubs and national associations worldwide. Now, working in unison with Aston
University, they have taken on two Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) Associates
to expand and adapt to meet market needs,
to ensure they continue to play a major role in shaping the future of
professional football scouting.
Scout7 is the acknowledged world
leader in its field, but following the explosion of interest in professional
football around the globe, the company was presented with a rare if not unique
opportunity in the summer of 2010. To continue its growth, Scout7 had to
re-engineer its core product (its football database) to meet changing market
expectations. The academic team of Drs David Evans, Dympna O’Sullivan and Tony
Beaumont from Aston University’s Knowledge Engineering Research Group had both
the academic knowledge and the practical experience of partnering with
commercial organisations in the development of object-oriented database
structures, applications interfaces for novel access channels, and software
methodologies.
Two KTP Associates are currently
working on this exciting project, which is now approaching its halfway stage.
One associate is focussing on the development of “Football Data Centre” (FDC);
an adaptable data resource to be encapsulated within a web-service oriented
architecture. The second associate is focussing on application services
enabling the client to present and manipulate the data to meet their specific
requirements in an integrated framework. The objectives are to deliver the
creation of software processes and a framework to deliver and maintain high
quality software.
How
has the link between Aston University and Scout7 been beneficial?
The combination of Scout7’s successful
model, with the expertise that the KTP Associates are offering in conjunction
with Aston University, is giving Scout7 the knowledge and capability to move
forward in this fast-paced market.
The Lead academic Dr David Evans,
Senior Lecturer in Computer Science, says: “This project is helping the
academic team further our real world experience of service oriented computing.
It is generating case studies for taught programmes at undergraduate and
postgraduate level, as well as excellent material for final year project
students with real practical relevance. All of this combined shows the clear
benefits of the programme to the academics involved.”
Scout7 Operations Director and project
supervisor, Mr Bradford Griffiths, said: “The work being carried out by our two
KTP Associates is core to the release of Scout7’s next generation
products. The project will allow us to
easily customise solutions to meet our client’s needs, as well as providing a
generic platform for continued expansion and the integration and delivery of
3rd party applications and data to our clients.”
What
is different about this project?
The collaboration between Aston and
Scout 7 can be directly linked to Premiership football.
The resulting product, ProScout 7, is
a database of more than 110,000 professional footballers from more than 100
countries that provides up-to-date statistics on performance, injury history,
transfers and disciplinary records.
Further
information:
Dr David Evans, Aston University: d.j.evans@aston.ac.uk or 0121 204 3463
Andy Cooper, Scout7:andyc@scout7.com or 07917 121 971
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