December 2005

1. Business Plan Competition – outlines by 31.12.05
2. New KITE Club Special Interest Group in Security and Defence

1 Research Councils’ Business Plan Competition – outlines by 31.12.05

PPARC is keen to encourage more entries to this competition from our community.  Simple one-page outlines are required by 31st December.

Every good business starts with two things; a good idea and a robust business plan. You supply the idea, and we’ll give you the skills, knowledge and support you need to develop a first-rate business plan! This will be provided through expert trainers, coaches and mentors. Plus - the opportunity to win funds to help with the development of your business idea. Not all ideas will become new businesses, and the training will include best practice in establishing sensible options for developing your idea.

The competition is open to researchers funded by all of the Research Councils including PPARC and at CERN.  Postgraduates, postdoctoral researchers and academic staff who have a business idea arising from research and want to develop this further are encouraged to participate.

Taking part is easy - just prepare a one page summary of your business idea, without giving away any potential business secrets and complete the short application form by 31.12.05. Once accepted for the competition you will benefit from training through a two day commercialisation workshop.

The second phase of the competition will provide you with access to highly skilled experts with experience of research commercialisation. They will help to guide you in the preparation of a high quality business plan - the essential requirement for marketing your business idea to potential investors.  Prizes of up to £25,000 will be awarded to the business plans judged to have the best potential to help turn business ideas into reality.

For further information, please contact Nathan Hill or visit www.rcuk.ac.uk/innovation/bpc/index.asp

2 New KITE Club Special Interest Groups in Healthcare, Security and Defence

As part of our planned development of the KITE Club, we shall be establishing some Special Interest Groups (SIGs).  The first SIG will be in Life Science and Healthcare Technologies and the second will be in Security and Defence.

Inaugural SIG meetings will be held on 14th February (Healthcare) and 21st March (Security and Defence).

If you have interests in the security and defence area, including projects funded through the Joint Grants Scheme, please contact Glyn White to register your interest.  To register your interest in the Healthcare SIG, please contact Mark Littlewood.

We wish all our readers a healthy happy and prosperous 2006.

Contacts:

KITE Club Innovation Advisors and CERN UK Technology Transfer Officer.  Nathan Hill: email: nathan.hill@qi3.co.uk Tel: 01223 422405.  Also Mark Littlewood mark.littlewood@qi3.co.uk, Glyn White glyn.white@qi3.co.uk and David Rafe david.rafe@qi3.co.uk.  For enquiries about the Basic Technology Research Programme, please call 01223 422407.  Registration for events is available via www.qi3.co.uk/events.asp