The University of Aberdeen has won two awards at this year’s Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards, which celebrate high-impact collaborations between academia, business, and policymakers.
The awards were held in Dundee on Thursday, March 23, with three nominations linked to the University including Ed Blissitt from Motive Offshore Group Ltd based in Banff, who won the Innovator of the Future award due to his his involvement in a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with Dr Andy Starkey from the University’s School of Engineering.
The partnership led to the development of a novel Digital Winch technology that has been integrated into Motive’s next generation winch design to form the company’s first SmartWinch, a novel data acquisition system which is unique to the offshore engineering industry.
The product has played a key role in digitalising the company, resulting in a substantial growth in value. Its development has led to the company committing to the full digitalisation of all its products, as well as a host of other benefits including the creation of an innovation centre.
The KTP leading to the development of the SmartWinch technology has recently been awarded an ‘Outstanding’ rating by Innovate UK, the UK's Innovation Agency – the highest possible award.
Meanwhile, the iCAIRD project, of which the University is a partner institution, won the Multiparty Collaboration award in recognition of its work establishing the infrastructure and environment required to support development, validation & deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for use in healthcare.
A centre of excellence, iCAIRD brings together 15 academic, industry and healthcare partners throughout Scotland and was established to enable better and earlier diagnosis, more efficient treatment and improved outcomes for patients through AI.
The University is a core site within the collaboration, with the Aberdeen Centre for Health Data Science and NHS Grampian leading the way in Aberdeen to transform how academia works with industry and the NHS.
Professor Marion Campbell, Vice-Principal of Research at the University of Aberdeen, commented: “I congratulate Ed Blissitt and the iCAIRD team on their success in the Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards, and to all those nominees whose contributions were recognised this year.
“Their success is testament to the valuable cross-sector collaborations between the University and its partners resulting in tangible benefits across a whole range of sectors, from industry to healthcare and beyond.”