SUPPORT FOR INNOVATION PROJECTSScottish Government announces £1m for three technology development projects

A pilot project to improve the identification and treatment of inflammatory bowel disease is to benefit from a share of a £1 million development fund.Toshiba Medical Visualisations Systems, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the NHS Innovation Partnership Board will receive £400,000 to develop the health and wellbeing pilot. It will focus on the rapid prototyping and adoption of solutions to inflammatory bowel disease, the Scottish Government has announced.

In addition, £400,000 is being made available to support work with Codebase on the development of a digital pilot in Edinburgh that will focus on scaling up digital entrepreneurs. And a further £200,000 will be used to fund CivTech, “a digital accelerator which aims to harness innovation in Scotland’s small business and start up technology sector to create new and/or more efficient public services.”

The funding was announced alongside a new Innovation Action plan, ‘Scotland CAN DO’. Paul Wheelhouse MSP, Scotland’s Minister for Business, Innovation and Energy, said: “We want to support business innovation and to help companies thrive. The £1 million I am announcing today will make a real difference, such as the use of the public sector to catalyse innovation in projects such as CivTech, the world’s first cross public sector technology accelerator.”

Scotland CAN DO is intended to boost Scotland’s innovation performance to match the levels of the best performing countries in the OECD. Early priorities will be to:• directly encourage more business innovation;• use public sector needs and spend to catalyse innovation;• support innovation across different sectors;• make best use of university research knowledge and talent to drive growth

and equip Scotland’s people with the tools and skills needed to innovate.

Among the proposals in the plan are to help innovative companies with rapid growth potential via a SCALE UP programme, streamlining partnerships across the public and private sector, and developing a coordinated programme with specific target areas and inducement prizes.Source: http://news.gov.scot/news/support-for-innovation-projects