GAMBICA’s University and Industry Collaboration Group (GUIC) held it’s annual COLLABORATE! event last week.

SMC hosted the engaging day at their UK headquarters in Milton Keynes, which saw representatives from academic and industry members come together to share best practice on collaborative projects.

Guests were treated to talks from a variety of expert speakers including Dr Brian Holliday, Managing Director for Siemens Digital Industries, Dr Kate Dixon, Director of Technical Services at Manchester Metropolitan University and Prof Mandy Parkinson, Professor of Business Innovation at the University of Salford.

Attendees also got to participate in ‘speed networking’ sessions to assess further how academics and industrial members could work together on funding, knowledge sharing and transfer, research, innovation, product development, commercialisation, curricular relevance, student scholarships, industrial placements and graduate employability.

Dr Simon FitzGerald, Technical Manager at HORIBA UK, said: “The event provided interesting discussion about the opportunities and realities of collaboration between academia and industry. This is a growing area for HORIBA UK but one from which we are continually learning and contributing. The day was a great success, I would definitely attend COLLABORATE! again.”

Dr Kate Dixon, Director of Technical Services at Manchester Metropolitan University, said: “It was brilliant to be part of the event, the opportunity to be in the same room with industry colleagues and to share thinking was invaluable. The day enabled us to identify a number of common themes including the importance of technical talent in delivering and enabling innovation.”

For more information about the GUIC and to get involved in the working groups, click here.