Director’s message – Grow MedTech and Translate

Dr Josephine Dixon-Hardy (Director of Medical Technologies Innovation at the University of Leeds and Director of Grow MedTech) provides a message for the programme community as UKRI Research England funding ends.

Dear Colleagues

I want to start my message by saying that I hope you are well after what has been an extremely challenging year.

I am optimistic that we might make a return to some normality in the not too distant future. With that in mind, I wanted to give an update on the status of our regional programmes: Grow MedTech and Translate MedTech.

Grow MedTech has been funded by UKRI Research England Connecting Capability Fund, and this comes to an end at the end of this month. We feel the programme has been a huge success, with more than 320 technology development projects supported involving over 30 universities, more than 350 academics, over 100 companies and around 175 clinicians and healthcare professionals. We are proud to have levered more than £11.6m to further progress technology opportunities in our regions, and I hope you have benefitted from our opportunities. Between now and the end of September we will be continuing to publish outcomes from the programme on our website and across social media platforms, and I hope you find these useful.

Continuing to support medical technology innovation in our region is one of our central ambitions. Our Executive Management Group will continue to meet and review opportunities where we can work together, and there will continue to be someone available at each partner HEI to signpost aspiring innovators to the best people to support their needs.

Over the coming months we will focus on delivering innovation learning and development opportunities through Translate. We currently have three secondment opportunities and a webinar series available, and we are planning our full training programme for Autumn.

I want to thank you, on behalf of myself and our team of Technology Innovation Managers, for your dedication to the programme, despite challenging circumstances. Our community has made the programme the success that it is.

I hope you have a wonderful summer break and look forward to welcoming you back through Translate innovation learning and development opportunities in the autumn.

With very best wishes

Dr Josephine Dixon-Hardy