New Anglia Innovation Board

Tuesday 28th March 2023 14:00-16:00

MS Teams

Minutes

Invited:

Welcome from the Chair – Introductions, Apologies & Minutes

- Welcomes and introductions made.

- Introduction: Peter Brady: Innovation Labs – Sudbury, Stowmarket, Woodbridge and UoS.

Potentially opening another 3-4 in next 6 months. Supporting members with entrepreneurship skills

and their innovation opportunities. Unique blend of capabilities to support businesses to get them

through to a successful end point, with some fantastic case studies.

Minutes of 6 December meeting:

- Few actions which have been delivered – connected innovation slides were shared; connecting dots

between catapults and IUK was picked up with Indro Mukherjee visit; and devolution / County Deals

conversation to be picked up today (many partners will have received an email from CJ Green and Chris

Starkie).

- Minutes approved.

Johnathan Reynolds (Chair)

Sarah Steed

Jo Middleton

Scott Cogman

Ian Pease

David Taitt

Peter Brady

Julie Schofield

Prof. Darryl Newport

James Allen

Prof. Fiona Lettice

Julian Munson

Lisa Perkins

Apologies:

Howard Partridge

Nick Goodwin

Jai Raithatha

Tim Green

Gary Jennings

Prof. Mohammad Dastbaz

Board Member

Director of Innovation and Engagement

Economic Strategy and Policy Manager

Project Coordinator

Business Development Manager

Chair

Chief Executive Officer

Head of Business Partnerships

Professor – Energy & Sustainable

Development

Innovation and Sector Manager

Pro-Vice Chancellor

Head of Enterprise Zones and Innovation

Adastral Park & Research Realisation Director

Regional Manager

Chief Operating Officer

Head of Economic Development

COO

Innovation Director

Deputy Vice-Chancellor

New Anglia LEP

Norwich University of the Arts

Norfolk County Council

New Anglia LEP

OrbisEnergy

Hethel Innovation

Innovation Labs

University of East Anglia

University of Suffolk

New Anglia LEP

UEA

New Anglia LEP

Innovate UK

Anglia Innovation Partnership LLP

Suffolk County Council

Cefas

Oxford Innovation

University of Suffolk

Actions/Notes:

- Action: Send in any further updates for delivery plan prior to presentation at LEP Board on Thursday. -

All

Innovation Board Updates:

David Taitt, Hethel Innovation

- Typically, at 95-98% at Hethel and Scottow.

- Targeting long term Hangar lease – Hangar 3 – Equipmake

- Norfolk will become manufacturing hub for electric double decker buses.

- Hangar 4 – conclude lease soon. All Hangars then leased.

- Hethel is bursting at the seams. Phase 4 (90,000sqft additional land purchase from Lotus) – four

companies lined up to take the space. Just need £20m to get this over the line. Expect this to be up and

running 18 months to 2 years.

- Managing Broadland Food Innovation Centre. Getting new tenants coming in and all looking very good.

- Really pleased with the resilience of the businesses incubated across the sites.

Fiona Lettice, University of East Anglia (UEA)

- In the middle of Impact Acceleration Account bids to UKRI and AHRC.

- Recently put in an E3 bid for research excellence – centre for heritage, innovation and change including

immersive technology expertise from NUA.

- Adapt to changing environments through heritage

- Gloucester project – Barnwell brothers – Gloucester shipwreck on display at Norwich Museum

- Hosting Design Council’s Design for the Planet Conference – featuring NUA, brandland work, etc. on 16-

18 October 2023.

- Sunrise Coast bid – into another funding opportunity with EPSRC.

- Delivering the Creative East Programme for the LEP

Ian Pease, OrbisEnergy / Suffolk County Council

- Launch Academy from ORE Catapult launching in the summer of 2023. Currently receiving EOIs.

Identifies businesses (SMEs) in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex with products that could be deployed in the

offshore wind sector. Want to identify 9 companies (3 from each county).

- Successful East Suffolk Hydrogen Conference in February with over 160 in attendance. Early

opportunities in clean hydrogen developments.

- Significant announcements recently:

o Vattenfall announced O&M Centre will be in Great Yarmouth which will create +130 jobs.

o Nexus project about to start construction – 14-16 new industrial units close to OrbisEnergy

around clean energy sector. Seeing a lot of enquiries to take this forward. Could act as grow on

space for OrbisEnergy tenants.

- Taken 3 new companies on in 2023. Not much space left at OrbisEnergy, so looking good on occupancy

front.

- East Suffolk Nexus project near to OrbisEnergy due to start construction. Mix of office and warehouse

targeted at offshore and renewables sector businesses. High level of interest and potential Grow on

Space opportunities.

Jo Middleton, Norfolk County Council

- Nothing particularly to report for Innovation Board. Few of the NIF projects that secured funding have

an innovative angle to those e.g., decarbonisation in agri-food, seaweed, FinTech, etc.

Lisa Perkins, BT

- NAAME Conference on 9th February – 170 attendees.

- Hosted Indro Mukherjee, CEO of Innovate UK, at Adastral Park. Very successful visit where partners

landed key messaging. Agreement in principle for a Local Innovation Action Plan. Also, separate

conversations about initiatives at Adastral Park.

- Connected Innovation Conference took place at Adastral Park, which was well supported and launched

the new Space Cluster. George Freeman visited and was a keynote speaker as part of a wider cluster

visit on that day.

- Robotics Festival at the end of 2022 saw +1,000 people on site at Adastral Park. Intend to run

something very similar again in 2023 on sustainability.

Peter Brady, Orbital Media / Innovation Labs

- Innovation Labs – activated the pop-up programme – visiting CI Hubs and locations across East Suffolk

to deliver innovation / business support and showcase technologies – VR, AI, Immersive Technologies.

Promoting and driving programme.

- Innovation Labs Showcase at OrbisEnergy on 02 June 2023 10-4

- Engaging with DWP around a programme to get job seekers to use ILABS’ coworking spaces, network

with members and gain an understanding of entrepreneurship and innovation skills.

- MOT for the Over 50s – range of events to encourage them to engage with innovation and

entrepreneurship opportunities.

- Innovation and Skills Centre at Gateway 14. Great to see an innovation section carved out at this

development site. Business case has been approved in principle as part of the Freeport East geography.

Lots of innovation and technology we would like to integrate.

- Want to run research projects through the Centre including around pain therapy, building on research

expertise to date.

- Several members have taken on the grow-on space in Stowmarket which is healthy and always on the

lookout for new grow-on space to accommodate growth businesses.

Sarah Steed, Norwich University of the Arts

- Very active in Communication and Design with Norwich Research Park – work around Peas and how to

position nutraceuticals in a positive way. Led to more opportunities and born out of this board.

- Screen technology – Virtual Production studio bid into AHRC.

- Contacted to say that they have received a £1m investment to spend in six weeks to develop a

cylindrical LED screen 10m by 4m.

- Drive industrial R&D – full suite of virtual production facility and cylindrical LED screen.

- Looking at locations on campus and with Norwich City Council to locate this – given the size

- Holosys system – volumetric asset capture – AI manipulate those images. Wide range of industry

applications.

- Norwich will have an incredible overall offering, so the plan is to commercialise all of these

opportunities from day one and working with David Dukes and team around the inward investment

opportunities.

Darryl Newport, University of Suffolk (UOS)

- Interested in picking up a conversation with Sarah and Norwich University of the Arts around

collaboration opportunities.

- Director of Suffolk Sustainability Institute. Did a symposium two weeks’ ago around communication

and visualisation on climate change. Looked at sea level rise and air pollution, so Norwich University of

the Art’s project sounds very interesting.

- Project opportunity – resilient coastal communities. AAHRC and ESRC - working with both.

- New development in Gt Yarmouth – UOS facilities there. Keen to pick up with Ian and Johnathan

around how this can be utilised. Potential for dentistry to go in there.

- Supply Chain and Logistics Innovation Centre proposal being developed around Freeport East project.

Bid needs to be in by 25th April. Looking for an academic partner to come in on that bid. Need letters of

support.

New Anglia LEP Innovation Updates:

Julian Munson:

- Innovate UK Action Plan – visit from Indro Mukherjee (CEO Innovate UK). JR and JM presented to him

and his team at Innovate UK.

- Presented the wider regional cluster activity and referenced the Innovation Board members.

- Indro appreciated the joined-up nature of the region and how the CI project had not been seen

elsewhere.

- Picked up about developing a regional innovation action plan – how Innovate UK will work to develop

their support and engagement with UKRI organisations (EDGE, Catapults, etc.) in the region.

- Event in early September planned around this. Date to be confirmed.

- Example here - https://iuk.ktn-uk.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Innovate-UK_West-Yorkshire-

Action-Plan_DIGITAL_TW_D1.pdf

- Also speaking with Minister George Freeman around the development of a Rural and Coastal focused

Regional Innovation Cluster.

- Connecting a number of disparate partners and places linking up to create a significant cluster with

multiple areas of expertise (building on the CI network).

- Will update the board on both of these developments.

- Thank you to all board members for contributing and helping to develop the Innovation Prospectus.

Scott Cogman:

- End of first 2 years of Connected Innovation project, funded by NSF and SIGIF.

- Started off with 12 innovation hubs and centres within the network, and this has gone up to 24 overall.

- Against the KPIs set out in the original proposal, we have surpassed each target including the number

of collaborations facilitated, funding applications, businesses accessing support, planned events,

inward investment gains, and engagements with national organisations.

- Project comfortably met and delivered against specific outputs mentioned in the project proposal.

- Delivered a really good spread of events from seaweed to hydrogen to enterprise event to KTP events

and the Conference.

- Worked with Tech East to look at cross-sector deployment of digital innovation.

- Measured event activity against Innovation Strategy technologies and key themes. An example of an

area where we could explore in more detail as the project moves forward would be quantum.

- From a thematic perspective, we can also focus more on investment funding and support.

- Number of hub businesses engaging with Growth Hub has grown substantially as project has

progressed, with a focus around LEP’s GTI fund, the Innovation Grant Mentoring Project (one of first

successful businesses was a connection made at a CI network meeting to Laura Hill), etc.

- 86 network collaborations and introductions achieved.

- 500+ businesses within the network.

- 28 events hosted and supported.

- 30+ hub businesses applying to GTI funding.

- Due to the impact of Covid, physical events have been thick and fast as we entered into the second

year and especially the latter half of this financial year. Would be good to set out a structured events

calendar.

- Partners keen to utilise our world-leading research base and innovation hub focus on

commercialisation of research and supporting businesses to bring it to market.

- Hub network keen to understand how they can work with and benefit from emerging opportunities

such as Space, Hydrogen and Freeport East.

- Another Showcase Event in 18 months would be welcomed from the CI network.

- Partners would welcome greater engagement with the private investor network to support start-up

and scale-up businesses in the region.

- Potential for Connected Innovation to have its own branding moving forward.

- Will share the slides, embed a link to the CI video and prospectus.

James Allen:

- Feasibility study for an Agri Living Lab underway– bringing Agri food, Agri tech and space community

together – funded by Satellite Applications Catapult.

- Health Tech lab visit happening tomorrow at UOS with Satellite Application Catapult.

Julian Munson:

- UKSPF / New Anglia LEP funding the next stage of the Connected Innovation project – encompassing

wider innovation cluster development.

- Making links to wider regions – University of Essex and relationship with Lincolnshire, Cambs etc.

- Greater investment focus needed.

- Drive greater relationship with Careers Hub and links to schools and colleges.

Government Funding Calls and Bids

James Allen

- Create Growth / Creative East programme – collaboration across the region / geography. UEA, Norwich

University of the Arts and UOS all partners along with Suffolk and Norfolk County Councils.

- Delivering a scale up programme for creative businesses.

- Launch event at Theatre Royal on 28th Feb. Flurry of activity off the back of the event.

- Website is now live and receiving EOIs. Cohorts taking shape and starting next month. Creative East

- Innovate UK Create Growth competitions – not yet announced but positive results for regional

businesses applying into this.

- Launchpad – Agritech – Innovate UK proposal – £7.5m fund aimed at regions around specific sectors.

EOI Application made with regional partners and Lincolnshire / Cambs.

- Awaiting announcement from Innovate UK regarding next steps.

New Anglia LEP Innovation Board Delivery Plan

- Innovation Board_Mar23 paper shared with Board Members with delivery plan updates.

Action: Send in any further updates for delivery plan prior to presentation at LEP Board on Thursday. - All

Future of LEP / Devolution / LEP Integration:

Johnathan Reynolds:

- Chancellor mentioned Gov’t minded ceasing core funding for LEPs from end of March 2024. New Anglia

LEP already in conversations with Norfolk and Suffolk County Councils given County Deals and

integration of LEP functions.

- Lots of work to do around transition. Norfolk’s County Deal consultation closed on 20 March. Three

business dinners held around Business Board development. Suffolk County Council waiting until after

the local elections.

- With future funding secured for Connected Innovation until March 2025, Innovation Board will

continue for another two years, at least.

Sarah Steed:

- Benefitted from this board given its links across the counties and innovation ecosystem.

- LEP has universities as a revolving place on the main LEP board and played an integral role in

developing Economic Strategies, which has in turn developed own strategies and projects.

- Innovation Board provides forum for key partners to come together. Would really miss this if it did not

exist. Need something.

- Not been engaged in County Deal consultation.

Julian Munson:

- Funding secured for NAAME, Connected Innovation, Create Growth and Space East until end of March

2025. Giving reassurance that we are committed to delivering those programmes and New Anglia

Innovation Board over next two years at the very least. Do not know what the structure looks like yet,

but from a delivery perspective that is guaranteed for next two years.

Jo Middleton:

- County Deals would start from April 2025, if the consultations are successful.

AOB