Salford Business School launch its centre for sustainable innovation (CSI)

In January 2024, the university of Salford business school launched its centre for sustainable innovation (csi). designed to connect the business world with academia. Since its launch the csi has enjoyed expansion and growth, in terms of projects, staff and funding in q1 of 2024.

in its first three months since inception, the team behind the csi, led by director sara boswell, have been focusing on the expansion of projects and growing the number of affiliate members across the university. by connecting academics from across the four schools, the csi has broadened its talent pool and opened up new opportunities for collaboration between both academics and businesses. as an example, a recently appointed affiliate is now working with the csi team to develop a carbon footprint assessment tool, which will support businesses on their sustainability journeys, and which will become a tool used on a number of initiatives going forward.

February saw the launch of the innovation labs programme, a fully funded business support programme delivered by csi in collaboration with the greater manchester business growth hub and experts from north of england robotics innovation centre (neric). the 3-day innovation programme is aimed at providing businesses with a safe environment to explore ideas, gain access to tools, experts, and help shape their projects through to commercialisation readiness.

work is ongoing on an accelerated knowledge transfer project, led by associate professor of digital transformation at salford’s csi, dr angel jimenez-aranda. the project will see the centre work alongside gs1 uk, the company managing the global trade item number system, to develop a user-friendly and effective digital tool to share, validated and verified product data along the supply chain in the construction sector.

in addition, new relationships and ecosystems continue to be developed. the csi is actively engaged with multiple partners such as bradford university, leeds beckett, birmingham city university, exeter and sheffield university to name a few, which will see the expansion of the csi project further into the uk regions.

most recently, working closely with salford business school’s business innovation services (bis) team the csi has helped to support several business innovation projects for local businesses, with the university investing up to £10,000 matched funding by the business for each project. these projects bring together business and academia to drive forward innovation.

now, the centre is recruiting businesses for their up-coming innovation labs workshops starting on the 14^th may as well as the ever popular small business growth course help to grow: management course starting in July which is accredited by the chartered association of business schools.