John Denham, Secretary of State at the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills, yesterday launched a £100m fund for research and innovation.

Businesses can bid for cash in eight categories. To help fight climate change there are categories for new materials to improve energy production, for lower energy lighting and display technologies, and for lower carbon technologies to improve national grid efficiency.

To improve business competitiveness there are categories for new high value manufacturing techniques, for creative industries in games and film, and for gathering data in complex environments.

To improve healthcare there are categories for new cell therapies and for technologies which can improve monitoring of patients with chronic conditions at home.

The first round of competition, for materials for high value manufacturing and cell therapies closes 14 February 2008. More details here.

The Technology Strategy Board, which is running the competition, said: "Proposals with potential applications across several business sectors, which build on links between academic and business research and which involve SMEs are especially welcome."

In other news, the Technology Strategy Board announced the "the Assisted Living Innovation Platform". This aims to look at how technology can help deal with the impact of people living longer and caring for those with long-term illnesses. Initial funding is £12m.

More from PublicTechnology.net here, and more from the Beeb here.®

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