Coventry & Warwickshire’s ERDF Technical Assistance Newsletter
The Technical Assistance team is available to provide support on further developing any ERDF project ideas you have on the four themes of the ERDF programme within Coventry & Warwickshire:
- Supporting Research & Development (R&D) and Innovation within businesses;
- Enhancing access to and the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for local businesses;
- Improving the competitiveness of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs);
- Supporting the development of the low carbon economy.
In this edition we bring you up to date on some projects funded through the 2014-2020 ERDF Programme in Coventry and Warwickshire and show you examples of what this funding has achieved for local businesses.
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ERDF OPEN CALLS
The June ERDF Open Calls have now gone live on the GOV.UK website. There is a deadline of 30th September for organisations to submit Outline Applications for extensions to existing projects or any new projects to be put forward. Click on the links for information on the calls for the following Themes:
For more information and outline application forms and guidance documents
Contact ERDF Technical Assistance (TA) team if you would like to discuss your project idea or check eligibility
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Current ERDF Programmes in Coventry & Warwickshire
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Free Advice and Support is available to SMEs from Coventry & Warwickshire with fewer than 250 employees across number of ERDF programmes, including
- CW Business Support
- CW Green Business
- CW Innovation
- CW Business Start, Grow and Scale
- ICT Business Support
- Manufacturing Growth Programme
- SME International Growth
- Aston Programme for Small Business Growth
Contact the CW Growth Hub for free Diagnostic session that will help businesses to identify the best initiatives for them out of the many complicated regional and national support services out there. Find out more
Access to Finance support
Coventry & Warwickshire Business Support and Innovation programmes have seen an extremely high demand for grants which has resulted in the level of grants available to businesses to be capped. This will change if further funding is received.
For further information on what is available please contact either a Business Advisor or the relevant Programme Management Team.
Business Support business@coventry.gov.uk
Green Business greenbusiness@coventry.gov.uk
Innovation innovation@coventry.gov.uk
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Coventry & Warwickshire Business Start, Grow and Scale
Hundreds more businesses will benefit from £2.6 million support programme
"With the new ERDF funding, matched by Warwickshire County Council and our partner organisations, the programme will go from strength to strength and help many more small businesses become established and grow." Mark Ryder, Strategic Director, Warwickshire County Council
Warwickshire County Council will deliver a new £2.6 million Business Support Programme over the next three years after securing another £1.3 million from the European Regional Development Fund for the programme, known as CW Business Start, Grow and Scale.
The ERDF investment, match-funded locally, is excellent news for Warwickshire's business community after the previous programme exceeded all its targets and received very positive feedback during its first three years, ending in December 2018.
The programme, managed by Warwickshire County Council's Economy & Skills Group, supported 411 businesses, helped 159 people to start a business and created over 250 new jobs.
Independent research found that 95% of respondents said they would recommend the project to other organisations while 75% thought the project would deliver a positive financial impact within the next 12 months.
The majority of businesses agreed that they received the right type and amount of help. That help will now remain available to Warwickshire businesses after the new injection of another £1.3 million ERDF investment, match-funded locally by Warwickshire County Council and partners. The county council will provide £716,000, with the district/borough councils, University of Warwick Science Park (UWSP) and Coventry & Warwickshire Reinvestment Trust (CWRT) providing a further £600,000 between them.
This collective effort means the council can continue to deliver a comprehensive, county-wide support programme.
Support available includes a start-up service (delivered by the Chamber of Commerce), a programme for tech-based businesses (Business Ready, delivered by UWSP), a dedicated programme for the creative sector (Creative Springboard delivered by CWRT) and access-to-finance advice, as well as many other support services for businesses looking to grow or invest in Warwickshire (delivered by the county council itself).
In the next three years the new programme is expected to support a further 475 businesses and help another 150 people to start a business.
Warwickshire County Council's strategic director for communities Mark Ryder said: "For the amount of money we, as a council, have put into the programme the payback is huge, so it is great that it will continue for another three years."
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To find out more about the range of ERDF and other support available to grow your business, please contact the Growth Hub on 0300 060 3747
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30 July 2019 Going green: The benefits for your business
This event will:
- Identify how businesses can offset rising energy and resource costs and demonstrate how simple actions can save energy, reduce costs and increase productivity
- Provide details on funding opportunities that will help your business increase its energy efficiency, reduce carbon footprint and, importantly, reduce energy costs
- Showcase exemplar organisations, and why they build sustainability into their business plans and how it has helped cut costs and win them new business
- Outline access to new funding opportunities for small to medium sized business in Coventry and Warwickshire, including grants up to £50k, with details on free energy and resource efficiency audits
- Demonstrate why clean growth and a circular economy is intrinsic to any future business growth strategy
- Identify how a business can gain a competitive advantage by taking early action in moving to low carbon approaches
01 November 2019 Student Entrepreneur Programme
CUE’s Technology Business Start-up Team is offering a new programme designed especially for students living in the Coventry and Warwickshire area. This flexible programme offers entrepreneurs a fantastic and rare 12-hour LaunchPad, dealing with three critical areas:
- Launching a new service or product
- Finding your first customer
- Developing your investment pitch
CUE is looking to launch cohort 1 in November 2019. If you wish to be part of this exciting journey then contact start-up@cueltd.co.uk or express your interest via our landing page.
This free support from CUE Business Solutions is made available through the Coventry and Warwickshire Business Support Programme. Support is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund.
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11th – 21st November 2019 Coventry & Warwickshire Business Festival
For the 3rd time this great event is expected to comprise more than 100 different business events stretching across eleven key sectors over the fortnight. Applications to run events in the Festival are being invited until by 2 September via the website https://www.cwbusinessfestival.com/
Other events:
11th - 12th September Recycling & Waste Management 2019
17th - 19th September Solar & Storage Live
4th - 5th November Digitalising Manufacturing Conference 2019
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Case Study
Business support pivotal to growth as R53 Engineering moves into top gear
"The support given by Warwickshire County Council has been has been absolutely outstanding" Roger Estrada
A small business specialising in high-performance engineering is growing its list of prestige clients after receiving "absolutely outstanding" support from Warwickshire County Council.
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R53 Engineering, in Warwick, first received a £100,000 Coventry & Warwickshire Innovation Programme (part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund) grant in 2017 to develop a new innovative high-performance shock absorber.
That funding, accessed through former county council business & investment officer Kai Cott, helped the company improve its offer to a client-list which already included the likes of McLaren and Bentley. R53 was able to take a new product to market, at the same time generating new skilled jobs within Warwickshire.
Roger Estrada, the managing director of R53 said: "The Coventry & Warwickshire Innovation Programme funding, which we received thanks to Kai's support, helped us to create the product at a very exciting time for the business. That helped us to attract high-profile customers like McLaren and Bentley’’. Read more
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Case Study
Proof of Concept – High Viscosity Heat Transfer enhancement device
For over 35 years CALGAVIN Ltd, a Warwickshire company has been providing heat transfer solutions for the process industry. These products resolve heat transfer issues and improve process plant efficiency. The company also supplies specialist engineering services including detailed heat exchanger evaluation and efficiency improvements to the overall energy use of the plant.
New Project
The company had recently undertaken a new project to test new heat transfer devices for viscous fluids in the region from 250Cp to 3000cP. These devices are used in industrial heat exchangers to increase the performance when used in viscous flow heat transfer. Backed by Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations, and after initial tests at the in-house test facility, the company has identified product geometries with very good market potential.
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Grant Funding
While in the process of development, CALGAVIN was awarded Proof of Concept Grant funding, which is managed by Coventry University Enterprises Ltd (Business Solutions) and is part funded by European Regional Development Fund. The Proof of Concept funding enabled the company to move from an electrically heated test rig to a more stable fluid heated test section with the addition of new monitoring computer and other equipment to get more accurate performance data from various products including hiTRAN™ Thermal Systems.
Impact of the intervention
The testing has validated that the new device can improve the efficiency in high viscous flow environments with new tested geometries which provide improved heat transfer characteristics over and above those employed for static type mixing.The testing also delivered more accurate performance data in terms of heat transfer and pressure drop for the existing devices.
The Proof of Concept grant funding also helped the company in recruiting an additional member of staff into the Research & Development department to build on this proof of concept to take it into the next prototyping stage.
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To find out more about the range of ERDF and other support available to grow your business, please contact the Growth Hub on 0300 060 3747
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If you would like more information about the county council's business support programme, please visit https://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/business.
If you would like more information about Coventry City Council business support programmes, please visit: http://www.coventry.gov.uk/businesssupport
For more information about developing ERDF project ideas in Coventry and Warwickshire or to provide feedback on this newsletter please contact:
Marzena Kubiak
email: marzena.kubiak@coventry.gov.uk
telephone: 079 435 107 60
Siobhan Clarke
email: siobhanclarke@warwickshire.gov.uk
telephone: 01926 418 011
For further updates on the ERDF Programme in Coventry & Warwickshire, please visit http://www.cwlep.com/funding/european-structural-and-investment-funds.
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