New technology centre planned for Greater Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire has a proud heritage in engineering developments and is home to some of the countries most respected companies. So it is exceptionally exciting that plans are afoot to develop a cutting edge technology centre focussed on advanced engineering research and development.

Recent discussions involving key opinion-makers from the Greater Lincolnshire engineering community and senior leaders from the University of Lincoln have crystallised the concepts and resulted in a ‘position paper’ outlining how the Centre might be taken from concept to reality.

The Bridge, which will be both a physical space and a consortium of like-minded individuals, will represent a bridge in many senses of the word:

• a bridge between industrial partners and each other, as well as a bridge between those companies and the University of Lincoln, to allow the engineering sector to access academic expertise.

• an entity to enable industries to bridge the gap between blue skies research and innovative ideas, and the proof of concept level prototypes needed to move to product development

• an organisation to bridge the knowledge gap that can exist preventing new material development, or that can exist within a workforce.

There is a considerable groundswell of support around the concept of The Bridge, particularly Greater Lincolnshire’s SME community can be helped to increase their R and D base. The next steps is to source funding to get the project off the ground.

Watch this space!