R&D funding of £50K award to Coventry's gaming cluster

By Nicky Godding

12 August 2020

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A project built on Coventry and Warwickshires "Silicon Spa" gaming cluster is one of 17 to receive £50,000 of early stage investment from UK Research & Innovation (UKRI)’s Strength in Places Fund. The funding is to develop full-stage bids for funding similar projects.

Covering a wide range of innovative sectors including healthcare, cyber security, construction and clean energy, the projects will also tackle some of the biggest challenges facing the UK today.

Led by Coventry University, the CW Creative Futures (Coventry and Warwickshire) project will build on the region’s world leading ‘Silicon Spa’ gaming cluster. Home to more than 50 games studios and 3,000 gaming businesses, the region’s unique skillset and infrastructure will be harnessed to create immersive products and services in combination with regional sector strengths such as automotive, advanced manufacturing and digital healthcare.

Investing in demonstrator projects in partnerships with SMEs will increase job creation and inclusive economic growth rooted in the region’s diversity and creativity, the government thinks.

This follows UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) announcement on 26 June 2020 of £186 million for seven R&D projects that will boost economic growth in their local areas.

Business Secretary, Alok Sharma, said: "We are backing our innovators and with the support they need to turn great ideas into first-class industries, products and technologies.

"From virtual construction projects to extracting clean heat from disused mines, the pioneering projects we are funding today will help create jobs and boost skills across the UK as we continue to drive forward our economic recovery."

By Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe.

After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts.

She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.