Developing enterprise and innovation in Surrey and Poland

The visitors met the staff of RES and, amongst others, Prof. Ian Kitchen, Prof. Susanna Hourani, Dr. Walter Wehrmayer, Prof. Colin Grant, Mr. Charles Croker and Dr. Malcolm Parry (Director of the Surrey Science Park). During the week they also visited the Surrey Enterprise Hub, Isis Innovation, Oxford Innovation and Hastings& Bexhill Hub courtesy of Jim Christy of SEEDA.

This visit was the result of RES’s collaboration with the Jagiellonian University’s Centre for Innovation and Technology Transfer (CITTRU) department in the GROW project ‘Bridging Business and Science’ (BBaS – see www.growbbas.com).

The €7.5 M SEEDA-led collaborative INTERREG IIIc program GROW project involved 5 EU regions (South East England, Malopolska, Noord Brabant, Emilia Romagna and Andalusia) RES coordinated one of the 16 successful projects aimed at research collaboration of university academics and SMEs.

It is expected that Surrey’s collaboration with the Jagiellonian University will develop in the next few years in the areas of enterprise and innovation, technology transfer, life long learning and research under the FP7.

The Jagiellonian University in Krakow was founded in 1364 and is one of the oldest universities in Europe as well as being one of the leading Polish Higher Education institutions. The visit was supported by the EU Leonardo training programme.