Welsh smart building start-up secures £3m in funding
enModus, a smart building technology company from Wales, has secured £3m in Series A funding from three main investors including one of the UK’s largest shopping centre owners. Founded in 2010, enModus specialises in Smart Light Control (SLC) and smart Building Energy Management (BEM). Its core technology is ‘Wattwave’, a low-cost powerline communications protocol for appliances and buildings which reportedly offers peerless range and robustness. The major investment comes via: intu – one of the UK’s largest shopping centre owners, Breed Reply – an investor for early-stage companies delivering IoT solutions, and Finance Wales – a major British SME investment company. Read more...
£20m Tata Tech centre to create 200 new UK jobs
Tata Technologies has officially opened its new European Innovation and Development Centre in Warwick, a £20m facility expected to create 200 engineering jobs in a boost for ‘Midlands Engine’ Tata Technologies’ European Innovation and Development Centre (EIDC) will house engineering support services, two advanced engineering labs and a modern R&D centre, and aims to further develop the company’s capabilities and growth opportunities in key sectors, such as automotive, aerospace and industrial machinery. Read more...
£92m to make UK global centre of railway excellence
A partnership between industry and a consortium of eight universities has secured almost £100m to fund research aimed at establishing the UK as a world-leading centre of railway excellence. The partnership – part of the newly-created UK Railway Research and Innovation Network (UKRRIN) – has won £28.1m funding from the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund (UKRPIF) managed by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). Read more...
First big HS2 contracts to build Britain’s new railway will support 16,000 jobs
The winners of the major construction contracts for Britain’s new railway were announced with the £6.6 billion contracts supporting 16,000 jobs across the country. The huge infrastructure investment covers the main civil engineering work on the first phase of HS2 between London and Birmingham – including construction of tunnels, bridges, embankments and viaducts.Transport Secretary Chris Grayling announced the decision to award contracts today, which will mean the new high speed link reaching Birmingham by 2026. Read more...
£100m Ernest Rutherford fund to attract skilled researchers to UK ahead of Brexit
A new £100 million fund will attract “highly skilled” researchers to the UK ahead of Brexit, the Government has said. Named after Nobel Prize winner, father of nuclear physics and immigrant Ernest Rutherford, the fund was announced by universities and science minister Jo Johnson at the Institution of Civil Engineers in Westminster. The announcement came as UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) chief executive Sir Mark Walport set out his vision for the new organisation, which will oversee all public research funding – including the Rutherford Fund – from 1 April 2018. Read more...
GSK pulls out of Ulverston biopharma plans amid major manufacturing shake-up
Pharmaceutical giant GSK has announced plans to overhaul its manufacturing network in the UK, but says Brexit is not to blame. GSK said it planned to invest more than £140 million at manufacturing sites in Hertfordshire, County Durham and Montrose by 2020However, GSK has abandoned plans to build a biopharmaceutical facility in Ulverston as it “no longer needed the additional capacity”. Read more...