Science is proving paramount and is playing an important role in everyday life, especially now in 2020 than ever before. However, following the science is proving a troublesome task to undertake in society, including when used as a clarion to call businesses by one of Lancaster University’s latest projects, as James Stancombe explains.

One of the difficulties in delivering a project on a patch in which you have had little previous exposure and where the focus is on supporting businesses to become innovation-ready, is persuading them to engage with the university in the first place.

The aim of the Greater Innovation for Smarter Materials Optimisation (GISMO) project is to help small-to-medium sized enterprises in Cheshire and Warrington to improve how they design, manufacture and use smart materials.

You would have thought that it would simply be a case of wowing them with the size of our investment in experts, facilities and equipment to get them on board, right?

Wrong. For many of these businesses, caught in the maelstrom of Covid-19 and soon to be hit by the full force of Brexit, there are more important things on their plate. And that’s before we deal with preconceptions about working with researchers at universities:

What tools does a project have at its disposal to get the message across to a new audience and to persuade them that we are on the same planet?

Resilient businesses won’t just batten down the hatches and wait for the storm to pass; they will be looking for opportunities to lean into the uncertain future, predict what it holds and be thinking about how to adapt to changing customer needs and supply chains.

For those with materials as their métier, that’s where GISMO comes in. The project can help them to understand the latest thinking and techniques, source new materials, discover new business opportunities, de-risk research and development and commercialise ideas. Gaining a real advantage, bolstering resilience and sharpening their competitive edge by following the science.

For the time being, we are prohibited from using local venues or tours of the Lancaster campus itself to get that message across, the project is relying instead on other means.

Our strategy has been to engage with local groups, business intermediaries and other stakeholders. Chambers of commerce, trade associations, innovation centre operators, providers of other business support projects, local authorities and particularly Cheshire and Warrington Growth Hub and the members of its business support forum have recognised how the project can add value to their own work with members and clients to prepare them for what lies ahead.

Their enthusiasm for the project and willingness to promote it through their own channels adds weight to our message to follow the materials science. Indeed, many of the first group of businesses to sign up to GISMO heard about it through local stakeholders and we plan to build on this with joint events and marketing activities next year.

This external support also helps to counter the view that university means theory, industry means practice and never the twain shall meet, which can be enough to deter a business new to this type of relationship from taking the plunge.

For GISMO – which provides fully-funded support for eligible businesses - the approach is to show how the science can support them in practical ways, for example finding new materials and formulations, testing products and materials, trialling new processes and building prototypes.

Businesses also have the opportunity to ‘try before you buy’, by attending one of our online seminars to learn about developments in materials science or by using one of our funded student intern placements to tackle an in-house project or a problem they are facing.

You can read all about it on the website, watch our launch event and recent seminar and experience it for yourself in our next online seminar on 5 February.

Follow the science; you know it makes sense.

James Stancombe is the GISMO programme manager at Lancaster University. GISMO is part funded by the European Regional Development Fund. To find out more about the project, visit www.smarter-materials.co.uk or email the project team at gismo@lancaster.ac.uk.

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