Case Studies

Algae Limited

Algae Limited collaborated with Edinburgh Napier University to develop an organic conjugate made from seaweed and Gum Arabic as a novel bioplastic material that could be used as an alternative to traditional plastics.

Wanlockhead Museum

Wanlockhead Museum collaborated with the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow as part of the Adopt a Business scheme; a new initiative aimed at boosting the sector’s recovery from COVID-19 by connecting tourism businesses to university academics and students, helping businesses to diversify and adapt to the new environment.

The Whithorn Trust

The Whithorn Trust collaborated with the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow as part of the Adopt a Business scheme; a new initiative aimed at boosting the sector’s recovery from COVID-19 by connecting tourism businesses to university academics and students for research and development projects; helping businesses to diversify and adapt to the new environment.

Phoenix Instinct Limited

Phoenix Instinct Limited collaborated with the University of the West of Scotland to undertake a feasibility study to determine if their idea of incorporating cutting edge smart systems into an old concept – the manual wheelchair - was practical and achievable.

image of hands holding a mobile phone with SENSEcity's augmented reality app

SENSEcity Limited

SENSEcity collaborated with The Glasgow School of Art’s School of Simulation and Visualisation to use augmented reality to bring archive images and animations to life, and embed audio into their travel guidebook app.

Beirhope Alpacas

The ABCs….and Ds of Success

Alpacas, branding, collaboration……and diversification are the keys to success for a Borders’ based company.

Beirhope Alpacas are a family-owned smallholding located in the stunning Cheviot Hills. They started operating in 2017 with five alpacas and 12 acres of smallholding. Since then, the business has thrived and managed to withstand the COVID-19 crisis.

Recircle Ltd

Edinburgh based Recircle has created a breakthrough technology that allows rubber to be effectively recycled into high-quality applications. They collaborated with Heriot-Watt University to develop rapid testing techniques suitable for high throughput screening in industrial application for the vulcanised and devulcanised rubber powders in order to assess the effectiveness of the devulcanisation process.

Scottish Crannog Centre

The Scottish Crannog Centre, located on Loch Tay in Perthshire, includes a museum, the reconstructed crannog (typically a partially or entirely artificial island, usually built-in lakes and estuarine waters of Scotland) and living history area with interactive demonstrations of ancient crafts and technologies from the Early Iron Age. Dr Marco Gilardi, Lecturer, School of Computing, Engineering and Physical Sciences, undertook a feasibility study and design of a new form of interactive, mixed reality, immersive experience to virtually link past dwellers and present visitors.

Group of girls holding sanitary pads in the air

Lilypads

Background

Lilypads Group Ltd is a mission driven company that manufactures and sells reusable sanitary pads and provides menstrual health education. Founder and CEO of Lilypads, Alison Wood, strives to end period poverty and stigma by providing affordable reusable sanitary pads and education to communities around the world, they currently work in Malaysia and Kenya, with preparations to start working in Cambodia and Nigeria.

NjordFrey

NjordFrey was referred to Interface by the Knowledge Transfer Network to find an academic collaborative partner. After scoping up the project and sending it on to various universities within Scotland, Ruth Oliver from Interface matched NjordFrey with four academic institutes for further discussions.

Hypervine Ltd

Following a series of industry scandals that highlighted the need for strong audit trails for building work undertaken, Hypervine was looking for an academic partner to investigate the use of distributed ledger technologies to trace the completion of work in the construction sector and manage compliance events.

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