UK companies invited to collaborate with Shanghai partners

A British government agency invited UK businesses to compete for 5 million pounds in grants for projects that involve collaboration with partners in Shanghai.

The competition will be administered by Innovation UK and the Science and Technology Commission Department of Shanghai Municipality, which signed a memorandum of understanding last year.

Innovation UK said in a press release that projects entering the competition should be in either of two categories:

1) Future cities; taking on the challenges of urbanisation, scarcity and climate change.

2) Innovation that leads to new products, processes or services, with a particular interest in healthcare, life sciences, advanced manufacturing and energy and green technology.

The projects must be business-led and must involve one organisation from the UK and one from Shanghai. Academic and research groups can join bids as partners. The projects should last up to three years and have up to 500,000 pounds of funding. The competition winners could recoup up to 70% of their business costs. The deadline for entries is 21st June, 2017.

Innovate UK said that international collaboration is vital for UK business and described Shanghai as a historic commercial and financial capital of China and a major player in life sciences, car manufacturing and other heavy industry.

To contact the reporter: conal@mail.chinadailyuk.com