Consultancy Services

A tender opportunity has arisen to provide consultancy services to the project Innovation Vouchers - 'helping businesses grow' at Aston University (www.innovation-vouchers.com). About the project The project promotes external knowledge sharing in business; it provides small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) with the opportunity to collaborate with external experts to gain new knowledge to help enterprises to innovate, develop and grow.

The overall project aims to deliver 190 innovation vouchers (of either £1500 or £2500) to SMEs from within the Greater Birmingham and Solihull, Black Country and The Marches region of the UK The breakdown of the 190 innovation vouchers is as follows: to support 100 businesses within Greater Birmingham and Solihull (of which 10 are from the transitional area) across the following priority sectors: Advanced Manufacturing including Automotive and Aerospace, Low Carbon, ICT, Digital and Creative and Life Science. The business would need to meet the ERDF eligibility criteria for a small and medium sized enterprise (SME).

To support 60 business within the Black Country across the following priority sectors: Transport Technologies, Building Technologies/Construction, Advanced Manufacturing, Environmental Technologies and Business Services. To support 30 business within the Marches (of which 7 are from the more developed area) across the following priority sectors: Defence & Securities, Advanced Engineering, Environmental Technologies & Services, Renewable Energy, Water Technology and Food & Drink.

The project also aims to assist enterprises to improve their innovation processes via workshops that provide innovation advice. The project aimed to support a minimum of 62 businesses through the provision of workshops across all three target geographies.