The Medical Device Manufacturing Centre (MDMC) is hosting its 2nd Annual Conference which will bring together industry, NHS and academia to discuss the latest services offered by stakeholders in the life sciences and healthcare sector.

This conference is unique in its breadth and offers the opportunity for delegates to find out more about initiatives set by the NHS and government, as well as learn about the latest advances by companies in the sector.

It will provide invaluable networking opportunities and companies will be offered free exhibition space on a first come, first served basis. Academia will have the opportunity to present their research work through a posters exhibition.

If you are interested in the latest MedTech news and tips, or seek further insight into growing your business, come along and be a part of this invaluable opportunity to network with like-minded individuals, companies and stakeholders in the Scottish life sciences and healthcare sector.

Programme:

The morning session focus is on the services that SMEs can access to accelerate innovation.

The afternoon session will explore the activities and services in health and care offered by organisations such as Scottish Enterprise, the Centre for Process Innovations (CPI), and the Digital Health and Care Innovation Centre (DHI-Scotland).

About MDMC

The mission of the MDMC is to provide expert advice on manufacturing engineering, regulatory issues and funding, coupled with technically supported access to manufacturing facilities, to assist small- and medium-sized companies in the translation of medical device concepts through to small batch commercial prototypes. Services provided by the MDMC are free of charge to SMEs, with priority to Scottish SMEs at all times.

A consortium of 4 universities led by Heriot-Watt and funded from the Advancing Manufacturing Challenge Fund (AMCF) and the Edinburgh City Deal, the MDMC offers medical device development and manufacture in Scotland, providing companies with an enabling step towards first-in-patient-studies.

The Bayes Centre Forum series is intended to create the opportunity for Partners & Members of the Bayes Centre, the wider University community and external business guests to interact, share experiences and explore multi-disciplinary AI and data science research collaboration opportunities.

This Bayes Forum will hear from a selection of colleagues who are focused on supporting researchers, students, staff and SMEs at all levels to take their work to industry; those that manage the programmes which support this and the researchers themselves on the importance of entrepreneurship.

Agenda:

• 1215 – 1220 Welcome – Michael Rovatsos
• 1220 – 1230 Introduction to wider DDE activity, DDI Hub focus and why Entrepreneurship is important to all. Charlotte Waugh (Enterprise and Innovation Programme Lead)
• 1230 – 1240 Venture Builder Incubator Programme – who is on it, working with Industry partners and what the Programme covers. Laura Bernal (DDE Venture Builder Programme Manager)
• 1240 – 1250 AI Accelerator – what ‘scaling up’ involves. Who is on the Programme and what it covers. Katy Guthrie (Programme Manager – AI Accelerator)
• 1250 – 1300 Old College Capital- New Launch Fund and new resident in Bayes. Intro to the OCC Team, roles and how they support innovation through their investment routes. Andrea Young (Fund Manager)
• 1300 – 1315 Close and Questions

A chance to gain insight into how Natural Language Processing (NLP) is evolving and how various sectors are realising business benefits.

The UKRI CDT in NLP is hosting its annual Natural Language Processing Research Day in Edinburgh. This is an event for key decision makers from industry and is focused on a two-way flow of ideas to develop new collaborative opportunities that meet industry challenges.

The CDT programme is now at a stage where there is a wide mix of innovative concepts and also students at a stage where their next career choice is imminent, and we would really appreciate the chance to have industry experts share views on how such students can best prepare for this next stage in their careers and hence we invite dialogue specifically to support the student cohorts (details to follow).

Attendees will get a chance to explore strategic themes with academic research staff and postgraduate research students as well as meet with current industrial partners already immersed in the field of NLP.

The CDT is specifically designed to equip a new generation of future leaders and experts with skills for advanced research in NLP and language science, giving them foundations in: linguistics, machine learning, statistics, algorithms. programming, working with other modalities such as vision, design, ethics, and responsible innovation as they apply to NLP systems.

Launching the new Centre for Engineering Biology at the University of Edinburgh. See the world-leading specialist research facilities including Edinburgh Genome Foundry, the world’s largest automated DNA assembly platform, and EdinOmics, for mass spectrometry, metabolomics and proteomics analysis and hear first-hand about current research and meet some of our key research staff. The morning will include short presentations on how the Centre is driving innovation in many markets including industrial biotechnology (e.g. bioremediation and biofuels), agriculture, the environment, and medicine and healthcare.

The new Centre brings together a community of more than 50 research groups and 200 researchers spanning biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, engineering, informatics, medicine and social sciences from the former Centre for Synthetic and Systems Biology (SynthSys) and the UK Centre for Mammalian Synthetic Biology.

The event will include an opportunity to visit the world-leading Edinburgh Genome Foundry (the world’s largest and most automated platform for DNA assembly) and the EdinOmics research facility (for mass spectrometry, metabolomics and proteomics analysis). These highly specialist facilities make a significant contribution to making Scotland the go-to destination to incubate and grow bioeconomy businesses to scale. The research facilities at the University of Edinburgh are unparalleled in Scotland and we seek to constantly evolve our research environment to allow the best ideas to thrive, push frontiers, deliver economic impact and drive sustainability.

Background

Scottish Ballet, founded in 1969, is Scotland’s national dance company and one of five national performing companies in Scotland. It is a registered charity, employing 37 professional dancers, a dedicated support staff, and a freelance orchestra of up to 70 musicians.

Challenge

Within Scottish Ballet, training is entrenched in traditions that do not reflect other related performance domains (e.g., sport). Their dance artists have relatively brief careers because it is common for a career-threatening injury to occur as a result of incorrect technique execution. This comes at a cost to the organization and its artists.

Solution

Scottish Ballet and the Institute for Sport, Physical Education and Health Sciences at the University of Edinburgh connected as a result of a networking opportunity at an international dance science conference. Their collaborative project proposed that existing practices within Scottish Ballet would benefit from tailoring new ‘cutting edge’ evidence-based approaches, recently applied in other domains (i.e., golf and weightlifting), to enhance training outcomes.

As the company had previously received a Scottish Funding Council Standard Innovation Voucher for a project with the Glasgow School of Art, they were able to apply for an Advanced Innovation Voucher, administered by Interface, to fund this collaboration with the University of Edinburgh.

In contrast to traditional practices that copy an entrenched (but not always appropriate) way of teaching, this project was grounded in the view that each dancer possesses important characteristics (e.g., physical, psychological, social) that require bespoke teaching considerations. Understanding “what is required and why”, followed by consideration of “how to do it” reflects an “expertise-approach” that is currently not employed within Scottish Ballet. Work funded by the Advanced Innovation Voucher would introduce a model and its requisite thinking skills, using the expertise-approach, to enhance workplace practices.

This project provided insight into new, innovative ways of approaching training and performance within the realm of elite ballet. It will advance physical and psychological practices proposed by sport research and provide a template to guide new and safe workplace behaviours in Scottish Ballet. The framework is important when needing to adapt performances based on choreographic nuances, changes to performance space/surfaces/equipment/costume and avoidance of injury caused by existing bad habits. The project further strengthened the realisation of supporting their elite performers in a holistic manner.

Following this project, it is the intention of Scottish Ballet to further embed this work with the support from the University of Edinburgh. Once implemented with high efficacy, they expect positive outcomes towards the longevity of their dancers’ careers, improved safety and, ultimately, performance standard.

Once this has been achieved within Scottish Ballet, the plan is to extend such a service to other professional ballet companies and their feeder schools within the UK, in partnership with the University of Edinburgh. Currently Scottish Ballet work in association with the Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and the English National Ballet, all of whom would benefit from this innovation.

Whilst there have been no cost savings as a direct result of this project, and during COVID-19 circumstances, Scottish Ballet anticipates that future collaboration with the University will lead to these being achieved.

If this framework were to be scaled up across other organizations, it could lead to savings for the NHS related to rehabilitation from injury.

For more in-depth information about the project, and a chance to hear directly from the partners, check out our webinar, Finding Funds and Expertise for Scottish Governing Bodies of Sport

Background

CogniHealth is an Edinburgh-based health-tech company that creates digital solutions for long-term conditions. With a current focus on dementia, their aim is to improve the quality of lives of families affected by dementia.

Their flagship solution, CogniCare, is a digital companion for dementia carers. The CogniCare app empowers carers with an array of resources and activities that cover all aspects of dementia care in one place. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) to drive personalised dementia care support with the aim to reduce the affected family’s financial, physical and psychological burden.

This healthcare app also allows carers to monitor and track disease progression and gain comprehensive insights through the reports generated; enabling them to communicate better and more accurately with healthcare professionals.

Challenge

Pooja Jain, a neuroscientist and co-founder of CogniHealth, was referred by Business Gateway to Louise Arnold at Interface.  CogniHealth was seeking to strengthen the monitor-and-track functionality and add interactive features to the CogniCare app.  

While the resources available through CogniCare were successful in informing carers about dementia, delivering care and self-care, the way in which carers could document dementia symptoms through the app was tedious at times and not aligned to medical standards. This made it difficult to provide personalised care.

Solution

Louise and CogniHealth agreed that working with academic experts who understand how dementia is detected, and how it is monitored in its progression, would help CogniHealth develop a better understanding of the parameters healthcare professionals would find informative.  This would ensure they capture the right type of information, confirm its accuracy, and help deliver an effective personalised care treatment plan. After a project outline was scoped up and issued to various universities in Scotland, Louise was able to identify relevant expertise at the University of the Highlands & Islands (UHI).  UHI have unique expertise in the care of older adults and the dementia care sector with a deep understanding of the various aspects of care provision for people affected by dementia.

CogniHealth and UHI worked together to capture relevant clinical, cognitive, functional and behavioural parameters within CogniCare that could provide key information to both family carers and healthcare professionals. Family carers would be able to track the most relevant symptoms over time in an accurate and interactive manner.

The project was funded by a Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher.

Benefits  

Both parties have benefitted from the exchange of knowledge as well as the co-production of an enhanced product that will have a tangible impact on dementia care. 

Company – One of the significant outputs from this project was the development of a framework for practical day-to-day assessments and monitoring on symptom escalation by family carers of people living with dementia at home. This feature of the app could enhance carers’ competence and confidence in early identification of relevant symptoms; enabling professionals to provide early intervention to prevent unnecessary hospitalisation.  There are currently no tools that enable this kind of interaction with all those involved within the dementia care triad (the PwD, the carer and the professional).

CogniHealth aims to build partnerships with organisations across the UK, and this project provided a unique opportunity to develop such a partnership with the University of Highlands and Islands.

University – The project added value to two Dementia PhD students with learning opportunities around academic – industry partnership working and project management skills.  Outputs from this project included a virtual conference presentation at the Alzheimer’s Disease International Conference in December 2020 and the following publication in the Journal of Working with Older people:

Macaden, L., Muirhead, K., Melchiorre, G., Mantle, R., Ditta, G. and Giangreco, A., 2020. Relationship-centred CogniCare: an academic–digital–dementia care experts’ interface. Working with Older People.

Scottish Economy – The societal and economic costs of dementia are detrimental to society. The Scottish economy is not only impacted by the health and social care costs of dementia, but also the loss of a valuable workforce who may become full or part-time carers for a family member with dementia. Enabling the delivery of improved care, prevention and early intervention can reduce costs, while also keeping potential carers in the workforce for longer.

Follow-On Activity

In April 2020, Louise connected CogniHealth to the University of Edinburgh Advanced Care Research Centre.  The project was funded via the Data-Driven Innovation Programme* to apply data-driven-innovation ideas in support of communities, services and businesses, in response to the COVID pandemic.  An award of £15k was made to the University of Edinburgh Medical School to build a ‘soothing’ feature within the CogniCare app. The new feature enables users to access and view soothing images. These images will be sourced from an existing database of 800 images that have been collected from the public and have previously been shown to help improve people’s mood and help fight mental health issues exacerbated by the COVID-19 lock down. Users will be able to personalise the images based on their preferences (e.g. themes, colours) and tell CogniCare how they feel and the impact the imagery has had to their mental health.

* The Data-Driven Innovation initiative aims to help organisations and all our citizens benefit from the data revolution.  Working together to deliver the 15-year programme are the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University, whose researchers will collaborate with industry on data partnerships in the public, private and third sectors. This is part of the Edinburgh & South-East Scotland City Regional Deal.

Background

Wanlockhead Museum represents the local social and industrial history of this once important site of lead mining. The museum consists of an underground mine (open to the public); Straitsteps Cottages, representing miners’ lives in 1750, 1850 and 1910; the Miners’ Library and the Visitor Centre; and the Museum. The library holds 2800 books and is the second oldest subscription library in Europe.

Challenge

Restrictions due to Covid-19 have had a negative effect on how the Museum can deliver the visitor experience.  In May of 2020, Interface joined forces with VisitScotland and the Scottish Tourism Alliance to launch the Adopt a Business scheme; a new initiative aimed at boosting the sector’s recovery from Covid-19 by connecting tourism businesses to university academics and students for research and development projects, helping businesses to diversify and adapt to the new environment.

Wanlockhead Museum were looking to develop an informed digitisation strategy. They have valuable resources in the library which could be more widely shared on a digital platform. Social distancing would be very difficult to undertake on the mine tour, but a virtual tour could widen their audience and increase access for those not physically able to enter the mine; and, with the inclusion of text, could also be accessible to the hearing impaired.

Solution

The Trust applied to the Adopt a Business initiative looking for academic support.  Mari Findlay, Business Engagement Executive at Interface, put Kathryn Linsell, Trustee, Wanlockhead Museum, in touch with Dr Kirsten Cowan from the University of Edinburgh and Dr Alena Kostyk from the University of Glasgow, who had expressed interest in participating in the Adopt a Business initiative.  Intrigued by the Museum’s rich history and everything it had to offer, the academics volunteered to work jointly on the project as there was a good fit between their expertise and the needs of the Museum.

Benefits

The academics were able to secure funding for the project that included ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) Impact Acceleration Account funding from the University of Glasgow; allowing them to create and test digital marketing solutions for the Museum as well as being able to purchase the necessary equipment to do this.

In collaboration with filmmakers “Silly Wee Films” from Glasgow, a static scenes VR tour for the Wanlockhead’s Lead mine, Miners’ library, and Miners’ cottages was created.

Audio narrations for these VR scenes were created in collaboration with “The Big Light” podcast company from Glasgow.

A small pre-Christmas Facebook campaign was tested to facilitate donations to the Wanlockhead’s fundraiser, and to build social media following. It generated 18,000+ post engagements, and 1,575 link clicks. Facebook page following went from 2,300 to 2,700 potential visitors during that brief campaign.

The academics are now preparing (January 2021) to launch a Facebook campaign to build a larger social media following for the Museum as well as generating more traction for the fundraiser. They will be testing out several digital campaign designs to find optimal solutions.

A further student marketing project is currently underway with the University of Glasgow.

Drs Cowan and Kostyk have supported the Museum throughout the course of the project and continue to do so. 

The Adopt a Business scheme was shortlisted by PraxisAuril for the 2021 Pandemic Pivot of the Year Award.

Background

The Whithorn Trust was founded in 1988 to inspire the public with the story of Whithorn, which is one of the earliest sites in Scotland where archaeological evidence of Christian practice is found. The site was an early medieval monastery and later a pilgrimage shrine. The Trust operates a visitor centre; museum; guided tours, including its full-scale replica Iron Age Roundhouse; and a café and shop to support its activities. It also promotes wide ranging economic development and educational initiatives, working with bioarchaeologists on dating and population information for the early burials.

Challenge

In May of 2020, Interface joined forces with VisitScotland and the Scottish Tourism Alliance to launch the Adopt a Business scheme; a new initiative aimed at boosting the sector’s recovery from COVID-19 by connecting tourism businesses to university academics and students for research and development projects; helping businesses to diversify and adapt to the new environment.

Julia Muir Watt, Development Manager at The Whithorn Trust, responded to the Adopt a Business initiative saying: “We would be interested in hearing from anyone who can work with a heritage organisation on virtual reality. We already work with archaeologists who are looking to produce an interactive archaeopuzzle with 3D models, but we have lots of resources where virtual reality experiences may be applicable.”

Solution

Mari Findlay, Business Engagement Executive at Interface, put Julia in touch with Dr Kirsten Cowan from University of Edinburgh and Dr Alena Kostyk from University of Glasgow, who had both expressed interest in participating in the Adopt a Business initiative and volunteered to work jointly on the project during their summer holidays.

Benefits

Drs Cowan and Kostyk were able to secure funding for the project that included ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) Impact Acceleration Account funding from both the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow that was used to fund filmmakers, post-production costs, podcasts and 3D headsets; enable the continuance of the collaboration; and support the creation and testing of digital marketing solutions. 

In collaboration with filmmakers, Silly Wee Films based in Glasgow, a static scenes VR tour for the Whithorn Trust’s Iron Age Roundhouse and Priory was created and the academics are in the process (January 2021) of creating a 360-degree video VR tour, which is in line with the Trust’s new digital ambitions.  Audio narrations were developed in collaboration with The Big Light podcast company from Glasgow.

A Facebook campaign was designed and tested to facilitate the sales of the Whithorn Trust’s “digital ticket” initiative and to build a larger social media following.

An additional student marketing project was also secured by the academics to look at improving the Trust’s general marketing activities for 2021.

The academics continue to support the Trust.

Background

Bright Light Relationship Counselling is a charity that provides counselling, family therapy support, sex therapy, life skills coaching to young people, and counselling in schools. They also support families in recovery after alcohol addiction.  

Challenge

Bright Light was facing challenges reaching as well as supporting young people as, typically, they were not found to be comfortable with face-to-face counselling.  Bright Light also have clients, such as carers and people with disabilities etc., where travelling to a venue is very difficult for them. Their services are crisis driven – they receive calls for help when issues have reached crisis point and relationships are near to or have broken down.  

To combat these challenges, Bright Light were looking to:

• counsel by digital/telephone/texting and other means,
• deliver training programmes for their clients to enable and empower them to self-manage their health and wellbeing and better prepare them for key life transitions (i.e. gender identity, becoming a parent for the first time, becoming a full-time carer, disability, separation/divorce, being safe on-line, managing addiction).

Solution

Bright Light approached Interface, looking for a university or further education student to compile a feasibility/business plan that would include:

• digital research to identify what would be needed (equipment, costs),
• potential demand for the service,
• resourcing requirements (people, cost, equipment, time, management),
• a competition policy in place from COSCA (Counselling and Psychotherapy in Scotland) and guidelines re telephone and video-conferencing counselling,
• existing skills/expertise identified in their counsellors plus suggestions for additional skills that would support their new business plan,   
• Other ideas for expansion.

Benefits

The feasibility study came just before the COVID-19 outbreak and the recommendations provided by the students allowed Bright Light to rapidly adapt their service model and set up digital counselling sessions. This enabled them to continue to help their most vulnerable clients, to keep in touch with them, as well as bringing in much needed income to the charity when many others were struggling.

Bright Light’s doors are wide open and welcomes people and families who feel they could benefit from counselling support in these strange and challenging times.

Contact askus@bright-light.org.uk and visit their website www.bright-light.org.uk.