Business Breakfast on How Bright Ideas Might Benefit from £2M Innovation Project
12th April 2007
How and why £2m will be spent on the region's intellectual property - and how local 'bright sparks' with a good idea can benefit - will be explained at a breakfast meeting organised by The Chartered Institute of Marketing next week at De Montfort University, Leicester.
Marketers, entrepreneurs and business people are invited to learn how this investment will aid innovation in the East Midlands at the Breakfast event at the University's new Institute of Creative Technologies on Wednesday 18 April.
De Montfort University has been awarded the £2 million by the Higher Education Funding Council to create and pilot a way of managing the region's creative ideas and innovation - known as Intellectual Property. DMU will use the funding to help businesses develop their latent intellectual property (IP) by generating new products and services.
The University's Director of Corporate Venturing Roger Dalby will describe the background to the project and the potential benefits to the region.
The project will guide the region's inventors through a robust process of checks and tests, developed by DMU, until the product or service is licensed or ready for market.
Throughout the process, fully managed by DMU, local marketers and business people will gain access to patenting, product development, prototyping and licensing. The scheme will fund part of the costs of developing the businesses' IP and in return will share a stake in the successful products or services when commercialised.
"Innovation has been identified by the Government as a key way for the UK to gain and maintain competitive advantage in an increasingly global marketplace," said Branch Chair and Director of Leicester business Headstorm Marketing & Event Management Ltd, Allyson Jeffrey.
"The business community's ability to invent, design and produce innovative goods and services that meet customer needs is vitally important to the future prosperity of not only Leicester but the region and the UK as a whole. This excellent breakfast event will allow Leicester's marketers and business people the opportunity to discover what this investment means for them as they could individually benefit," she added.
The Management of Regional Intellectual Property breakfast will take place at the Institute of Creative Technologies, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH, on Wednesday 18 April, 0730 - 0930 and will cost £5 for Chartered Institute of Marketing members, free to student members, £3 to student non-members and £10 for non-members and guests. All welcome.
To book a place or for more information visit www.cim.co.uk/events or call 01628 427120.
The Chartered Institute of Marketing's Leicester branch has organised the event as part of the Institute's new Small Business Group initiative.
ENDS
Notes for Editors
For further information or to attend the event please contact De Montfort University Press Office on 0116 2577021
For further information or to be kept informed about IOCT activities, please contact:The Director, Institute of Creative Technologies,
De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH
Tel: (+44) 0116 250 6146
Email: eedmonds [at] dmu.ac.uk
www.ioct.dmu.ac.uk