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Are you interested in how the research and innovation we undertake at LJMU could be of relevance to your plans to grow your business? 

Are you unsure of where to start on this; don’t know who to approach in the University or whether our timelines and expertise will match with your aspirations and indeed budget? 

Then our European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) projects are a great starting point.  

LJMU is proud to be working with local SMEs across a number of sectors: low carbon, advanced manufacturing, health, and digital and creative, to share market and technological insights, develop innovative processes and services and explore future funding opportunities. 

You can find out more our current projects and partners below. 

Low Carbon Eco-Innovatory (LCEI)

Low Carbon Eco-Innovatory creates innovative low carbon goods, processes and services, developed through collaborative partnerships between local companies in the Liverpool City Region and University researchers, students and academic staff.

LCR 4.0 START

LCR 4.0 START is designed to offer a proactive business outreach focused around digital strategy for business approach, aligning with and leveraging other support available within LCR that can support business growth of manufacturers and related supply chains and improve productivity, access to new markets and create higher-level jobs.

LCR Health MATTERS (Market Access and Adoption of Health Technologies – Tailored Support and Evaluation in Real World Settings)

This project provides SMEs in the Liverpool City Region with support that will enable them to better understand, work with and sell to the NHS and health and social care markets.

Eco-I North West

A £14m business R&D programme is now on offer to businesses across the North West. Led by Lancaster University, LJMU are a partner in the Eco-I NW project which seeks to support low carbon business innovations across the region. This is the first project of its kind that will open up such a huge regional resource to our local businesses. In a time of crisis, we hope to facilitate business recovery, resilience, innovation and growth.

LCR Founders

The LCR Founders project is a partnership between LJMU and the University of Liverpool that supports entrepreneurship. It addresses a specific gap in the start-up eco-system in the Liverpool City Region with the promotion of an entrepreneurial founders-led culture that increases the creation of innovative and scalable start-ups from higher education. Overall the project aims to increase entrepreneurship activities amongst students and graduates.

LCR 4.0 Holistic

LCR4.0 HOLISTIC programme is a fully integrated digital innovation support project that will provide intensive support to a wide range of organisations beyond manufacturing. The project will help companies to harness the benefits and agility of increased digitalisation, to enable them to adapt their business to become part of stronger digitally enabled supply chain, better equipped to weather market fluctuations and sectoral changes.

Cheshire and Warrington 4.0

C&W 4.0 will expand the proven LCR4.0 model into Cheshire and Warrington, linking businesses in the automotive and pharmaceutical industries with the University’s expertise. This project is tailored specifically to meet the needs of manufacturing and engineering businesses in Cheshire and Warrington to implement new Industry 4.0 technologies.

You might also be interested in the LCR Growth Hub website which has details of all ERDF projects operating across Liverpool City Region, which provide support for SMEs.

LJMU’s European Social Fund (ESF) projects can also be a good opportunity for SMEs looking to get involved with LJMU graduates and undergraduates. The ESF Programme is managed by the Department for Work and Pension and LJMU are involved in the following projects:

LCR Graduate: Connecting SMEs to Graduate Talent

This project will provide practical support to owners and leaders of LCR SMEs and LJMU’s student and graduate community. This project will help SMEs to capitalise on the skills and knowledge graduate talent can bring to bear on their business; and expanding the volume and range of professional-level placements and internships for our student/graduates. 

Leadership, Growth, Skills

The Leadership Growth Skills project aims to improve leadership and management by offering a demand-led training package for SMEs and their employees in the LCR. The project will upskill participants currently fulfilling or with the future potential to undertake higher level management roles within the city-region’s business base, with long term impact in terms of improving technical competence, and as result productivity.

Enterprise Hub Skills

Enterprise Hub Skills aims to simplify access to enterprise training and development by making Liverpool City Region a central hub for enterprise. Drawing together expert community organisations from across the region, Enterprise Hub Skills offers high-quality learning and development opportunities to build the enterprise skills and economic pathways for individuals. Through strategic engagement, the partnership will ensure local residents, no matter what their background and circumstances, can access support to build an individual learning plan that supports enterprise development.

If you’re not sure where your business is best placed to benefit get in touch via the details below and we’ll help scope this out with you.

The projects above are receiving funding from the England European Regional Development Fund and European Social Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is the Managing Authority for European Regional Development Fund and the Department for Work and Pensions is the Managing Authority for the European Social Fund. Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regenerations and the European Social Fund helps to support individuals to access training and education. For more information visit https://www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding.