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The Company

Scotmas is a leading manufacturer of water treatment, hygiene and environmental care products. Best known for its extensive range of chlorine dioxide systems, developed with over 25 years experience in the market, it is now actively involved in developing microbial biotechnology, insect repellents, insecticidal textiles and consumer product ingredients.

With a strong and continued commitment to R&D, Scotmas is always on the look-out for strategic investment opportunities with other companies and projects which can provide experience and capabilities that will add value to its offering.

The Business Challenge

An introduction to Interface – The knowledge connection for business, presented an opportunity to advance two research projects, one looking at bacteria identification and another on bacteria and virus tests. Following an extensive search of expertise in the field, Interface helped the company to develop active partnerships with several academic institutions.

The company produces microbe-based products used for a variety of applications in waste water treatment and land remediation, but wanted to expand this into a range of domestic cleaners and products for specific industrial contamination.

The Solution

Following discussions with the University of Aberdeen, it was learnt that spin out company NCIMB was undertaking the characterisation of the bacteria strains on a routine basis.

Scotmas was looking for help to investigate the effectiveness of one of its products for a client. Interface facilitated a project with Glasgow Caledonian University’s Dr Chris Woodall, from the School of Life Sciences, offering specialist testing services for bacteriological and viral testing. The project resulted in a continued relationship and subsequent testing work.

Following the success of the initial project, Scotmas embarked on a number of new collaborative projects, including corrosion studies and a project on microencapsulation and was in active discussions with other academic groups including Scottish Crop Research Institute and the University of Glasgow.

Benefits

Alistair Cameron, Technical Director at Scotmas commented:

“We were looking to strengthen our range of microbe-based products in a variety of domestic cleaners and products for tackling specific industrial contamination.  Interface linked us to academic partners who helped in the commercial culturing of these microbes, in order to supply a powdered product to Scotmas’s commercial operations.”

Scotmas went on to collaborate with the engineering department at Heriot Watt University, an academic team that were included in the University’s research submission to REF 2014* (Research Excellence Framework), 94% of which was judged as “world-leading” or internationally excellent. 

In November 2016 Scotmas announced that they are sending new self-sustaining technology to Botswana to bring properly treated water supplies to some of its most remote areas.The Bravo Hydro system runs without grid electricity or solar power, using a tiny generator in the water pipe. Scotmas said the technology could bring reliably disinfected water to areas where it had not been possible before.It is being sent to 40 villages in Botswana thanks to a major investment by the country’s government. ​

Scotmas undertook around ten collaborative projects with academia since the original project facilitated by Interface including two Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) with Heriot-Watt University. The family business employs 42 people and provides chlorine dioxide water solutions around the world – including in Doha for the Qatar World Cup 2022 and in villages in southern India.

In 2020 Interface linked Scotmas to Robert Gordon University to support the development of a new and innovative method of producing disinfectants without harmful by-products for use in hospitals, water supplies and food production applications. The project was funded through an Advanced Innovation Voucher and won Innovation of the Year at The Scottsh Knowledge Exchange Awards 2021.

*The REF is the system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions.

Edinburgh-based Blackwood Foundation has researched how design and technology affects the day to day lives of Scotland’s disabled population.

The nationwide research enables housing associations and disability bodies to understand the living experiences of those with a disability, sensory impairment or support requirements, through identifying what works effectively in the home environment.

The Business Challenge

In 2010, and working in partnership with Capability Scotland, The Blackwood Foundation held 11 workshops throughout Scotland to gather the views of the disabled on what pleased or frustrated them with design and technology across a range of contexts in terms of independent living.

These workshops were also observed by industry representatives from local authorities and housing associations.

The Blackwood Foundation required an academic partner to document these workshops and produce a post-project research report for future use.

The Solution

Interface facilitated an introduction between The Blackwood Foundation and Phillippa Robertson-Rieck and Nick Watson from Strathclyde’s Centre for Disability Research, School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow.

The academic team compiled data collected from 97 disabled individuals. The data itself was segmented into three technology categories – ‘generic’, ‘specific’ and ‘appropriated’.

‘Generic’ refers to technologies aimed at enabling independence such as computers, remote controls and cooking aids. ‘Specific’ refers to technologies and design, including specific domestic applications and designs, aimed at enabling independence which have been specialised for certain disabled people. ‘Appropriated’ includes examples of both design and technology where disabled people have been innovative in creating their own solutions.

This collaboration resulted in the report ‘Design and Technology as an Aid to Living Independently: Disabled people’s views and experiences’.

Key findings included:

• Inaccessibility and inappropriate design was the single most important and common design frustration, i.e. the width of fixtures and fittings, plug sockets too low down; kitchen cabinets too high or low; inappropriate door handles; inappropriate taps and inaccessible bathrooms
• Access to computers and the internet was central to the lives of many participants and the reliability of an internet connection was a major problem
• Level access was seen as a crucial design feature that facilitated independence and accessibility

The Blackwood Foundation has launched a social media site which acts an information forum for the disabled and those in the relevant disability fields to share knowledge and increase awareness of design and technology solutions available to them.

Keep up with the Blackwood Foundation here.

Whisky making is a long established industry normally associated with the distilleries spread around the Highlands of Scotland, but a local entrepreneur in Dumfries & Galloway has set his sights on breathing fresh life into a distillery which was last in use nearly 90 years ago.

David Thomson and his wife purchased the long-derelict Annandale Distillery based in Lowlands, near Dumfries, which first opened in the 1830’s and remained at the forefront of lowland whisky production until it closed in 1919. Now, almost 90 years later, a newly formed Annandale Distillery Company Limited is a step closer to restoring the historic distillery buildings to its former glory with its new whisky brand and an integral online visitor ‘experience’.

The Business Challenge

Financial assistance secured from Historic Scotland and The Scottish Government through a Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) grant initially helped to get the project off the ground, but of prime importance to David was academic help to undertake historical research pertaining to the locale of the distillery and the culture of its area. This would involve delving into areas such as the evolution and history of the lowland Scots language and emigration patterns from the region.

All this research was central to the brand ethos that he plans to develop and is also important in the context of developing a memorable online visitor experience.

Understanding David’s ‘day job’ was key to sourcing the level of high quality research he required. He is founder and CEO of MMR Research, one of Europe’s largest, independent consumer research businesses. Additionally, he is visiting Professor in the Department of Food Biosciences at University of Reading, UK, where key interests include sensory branding and the development of understanding consumers’ choice behavior.

The Solution

With his knowledge, David identified Interface – The knowledge connection for business, as an excellent source to tap into, partly because the team can access academics with key knowledge pertinent to his project and partly because in David’s own words ‘as well as the quality of whisky, it is important that the brand has some meaning and value’.

Interface rapidly understood and immediately grasped the key elements of David’s requirement and arranged collaboration with three academics specialising in quite distinct areas that would support his aims. The key was to convey much of the evolution and history of the lowland Scots language and written in a style which, in David’s words, had to be light and witty, but also comprehensive and credible, with the scope to offer further enhancement and development.

Interface put him in touch with renowned linguist, John Corbett, Professor of Applied Language Studies at the University of Glasgow with specialism in Scots language studies.  Professor Corbett wrote on the development of the Lowland Scots language and used the language to add descriptions of historical whisky and whisky-related events.

Interface also brokered collaboration with Dr Billy Kenefick, a lecturer in modern Scottish and British history at the University of Dundee, who looked at the history of the area and its migration patterns to other regions throughout the world. This is of particular importance to David, since the Single Malt Lowland Scotch whisky produced at the Annandale Distillery will be sold globally (either through the website or an international network of drinks distributors) and he has identified that a key target will be consumers around the world with Scots heritage and ancestry.

By populating the website with historical facts and figures around the history of emigrant Scots, these consumers could relate to their forefathers migration to the colonies such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA and South Africa. Indeed, the migration from the borders was of special significance, since David’s home town of Annan was a significant emigration port in the 1700s and 1800s, either offering direct sailings to the colonies or as a ‘feeder service’ to larger vessels bound from Liverpool.

The third academic Interface brokered a partnership for was through Dr Malcolm Lochead, a fellow in design, based at Glasgow Caledonian University who contributed to the initial ideas on brand design and development and is designing a signature plaid for the distillery.

“I am so grateful to Interface for bringing together this resource of extraordinary academic talent. Each project has its own challenges and the information and research has been pivotal to keeping the developmental phase on track.  I was intrigued to see if the academic teams were up to the demands of the task, and so far I have been very impressed. Trying to lay my hands on all this information myself, would have taken me a significant amount of time, but the Interface team pulled out all the stops to surpass my expectations.”

The name Kodak has been synonymous with the pioneering days of photography from as far back as the late 19th century. Since these early days, the company has remained a global brand leader, ranking as one of the leading multinational corporations, recognised in virtually every country around the world.

Much of Kodak’s recent success has been achieved by embracing the revolution in consumer technology and particularly, the move away from ‘traditional’ print photography to the huge global surge in digital photography of the late 1990’s.

The Business Challenge

Kodak, however, is more than a photographic and imaging consumer brand. To maintain its market-leader position, it has to continually adapt to change – researching and developing products and services ready to anticipate the next digital technology phase.

To underline this, Kodak has a very active global research and development community. In the UK, Kodak’s European Research Centre, based in the Cambridge Science Park, employs up to 30 people. It collaborates closely with the renowned Eastman Kodak laboratories in Rochester, New York, helping researchers identify new technologies that serve the needs for a diverse and increasingly digital European market in optoelectronics, materials research and imaging software.

Kodak’s European Research Centre has a key role, ensuring the company maintains market prominence in areas such as digital imaging, display technology and healthcare. And with innovation vital to sustaining commercial success, Kodak External Alliances (KEA), the body created to establish external working partnerships, is fuelling Kodak’s technology drive by building strategic relationships with universities, government laboratories and privately-held companies. This supports Kodak’s digitally-focused growth strategy by leveraging technology and intellectual property opportunities.

Currently, KEA is  involved in six UK Government funded (DTI programmes) and 2 EU Framework programmes and are always interested in exploring other opportunities relevant to their requirements.

Recently, Kodak has been working with Interface – The knowledge connection for business, to understand the expertise available to them within Scottish Universities and research institutes in specific technological areas – Digital Media and Systems (includes images, videos and audio), information management systems, Printing Technologies and Emerging Materials Technologies.

The Solution

Interface identified a number of potential partners – leading research groups in Scotland across the four areas which were of interest to the KEA team. Interface organised and supported Kodak during its subsequent visit to Scotland to meet with the key academic groups that were identified. The Interface team liaised with Kodak team members and academic partners to ensure meetings were set up and introductions brokered.

The Benefits

As a direct result of the meetings with the academic groups, two formal collaborations were established with separate groups at the University of Glasgow. The first of which is with Matthew Chalmers, a Reader in Computer Science. His work aims to take account of social and perceptual issues in the design and theory of computer systems. A collaborative research project with Kodak was established to investigate methods to better view images.

A further collaboration was established with Dr Joemon Jose, who is also a Reader at the Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow. Joemon’s research focuses on all aspects of information retrieval (theory, experimentation, evaluation and applications) in the textual and multimedia domain. Following on the success of the initial consultancy, the group is exploring other options of continuing collaboration including the support of a PhD student.

Dr Chris Moore, Director of Kodak External Alliances commented;

“Kodak’s European Research Centre is responsible for identifying unique science and technology and discovering new opportunities that serve the needs of the diverse and increasingly digital European markets.

Establishing collaborative partnerships through consultancy and studentships ensures that Kodak continues to be a world leader in developing the most technologically advanced and customer friendly imaging products. Working with Interface has allowed us to establish relevant capability within Scottish Universities in our areas of interest from image science to information systems.”

Dr Siobhan Jordan, director of Interface commented;

“The complexities helping develop a new range of digital process and applications with Kodak’s research teams are a testament to the superb capability within University of Glasgow’s Computing Science faculty which we identified on Kodak’s behalf. In the past ten years, we have seen an expediential growth in digital technology and Kodak’s vision to research and develop future opportunities in Scotland has to be applauded.”