The South East Midlands has one of the country’s most innovative and dynamic economies; whether fintech and smart cities in Milton Keynes, high value manufacturing in the Silverstone Tech Cluster, the future of flight at Cranfield or logistics along our major transport arteries. The region is blessed with great companies, ambitious innovators and excellent universities.

This event is for entrepreneurs, businesses, support agencies, and practitioners active in, or want to learn more about, innovation in the South East Midlands.

Why attend?

• You’ll find out about national and local economic priorities and the opportunities to for ambitious businesses and entrepreneurs to profiting though innovating.
• You’ll hear from and have the chance to meet national and local support agencies. They can help you form collaborative partnerships, undertake research and development, access funding and finance and grow skills and talent to support your business.
• You’ll hear from local businesses about their innovation journeys.
• You’ll find out about funding opportunities and gain practical skills in writing funding bids and pitching.
• You’ll network with people you could work with to fast track your innovation.

In partnership with

Innovate Local

The Innovate Local Program is a suite of regional engagement events that promote IUK & UKRI objectives and is tailored to regional priorities. We work in collaboration will local stakeholders to create an event that addresses regional innovation priorities and workshops to help businesses learn more about the grants and innovation process. Our objective is to reach out to local businesses and demonstrate the tyeps and level of support available, and through the presentation and panel sessions inspire them to look at innovation in their business.

The Program is now in its 4th year and KTN has been a trusted delivery partner throughout this time, organising and delivering of Innovate Local events. This financial year we aim to deliver to our audience:

• Up to 10 regional events, tailored to address topics of key concern and interest within the region.

• Content and agenda developed in collaboration with key regional stakeholders, KTN, Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) and Innovate UK colleagues.

• Increased understanding of the aims and objectives of Innovate UK, and the support available to innovative business.

• Following a tried and trusted agenda format, developed since the programs pilot phase, that contains a range of content types from keynote speakers to workshops and 1:2:1 sessions with business support experts.

• Delivering local impact to strengthen partnership with local stakeholders, and to increase the quantity and quality of business taking up business support offers and/or applying for IUK competition calls.

SEMLEP

SEMLEP has a key role in promoting economic growth. Over several years, we have built up a comprehensive understanding of how our local economies work. With this knowledge, we bring partners together to set the economic priorities for the area and use different levers available to us to help make the economy stronger, sustainable, and inclusive of all communities.

The South East Midlands is home to some of the most the innovative businesses in the country, with specialisation in the areas of future of mobility and clean technologies. Last year the area was one of the fastest growing and, as we begin to recover from the economic impacts of COVID-19, will be a critical contributor to rebuilding the UK’s economic position in a new, zero carbon global economy. Benefiting from the area’s location at the heart of the Oxford-Cambridge Arc, SEMLEP actively encourages and nurtures collaboration among people, institutions and industry to support the commercialisation of ideas in new technologies and businesses, at scale.