Innovation and Partnerships

Here at Abertay we have world-class connections with industry, the public and third sectors.  If you are looking for cutting-edge expertise to solve a business problem or to implement strategic change within your organisation we have a variety of specialist groups and centres which can undertake focused consultancy, training and support.  Our academics and students are always keen to apply their skills and expertise to work collaboratively with a wide range of businesses and other organisations to benefit all parties and wider society.  Working together, we can help you to improve your processes, enhance your products and increase your profit margin with tailored consultancy and knowledge exchange. 

We actively seek out partnerships and collaborations, and welcome approaches and enquiries from industry, the public sector and the third sector. In particular, we emphasise that collaborations can be tailored to suit your needs by involving either research, teaching or consultancy depending on the scope of your interests.

We can collaborate with you in a range of ways, so please get in touch with us if you are interested in working with us on any of the following:

• Forming a strategic partnership
• Collaborating on a project
• Proposing a research challenge
• Consulting with our experts
• Working with our researchers
• Learning more about knowledge exchange and service provision for business
• Collaborating with us on a Knowledge Transfer Partnership
• Working with us on spin-out or start-up companies
• Working with our students on projects, internships, or placements
• Co-funding PhD studentships or projects
• Recruiting a graduate
• Joining a research group or network

Assistance is available within the University to help support academic-industry/public sector relationships.  To find out more about what we can offer and how we can support you, please visit the following pages for more information on:

• Working with our academic staff 
• Working with our students 
• Services for business 
• Collaborative research and knowledge exchange opportunities
• Commercialisation and knowledge transfer (including research governance and intellectual property) 
• Events 
• Short courses 

To discuss potential collaborations or find out more about what we can do please contact business@abertay.ac.uk.

Abertay’s Academic Enterprise culture can be described as being open to new possibilities. Our innovation ecosystem is underpinned by intellectual curiosity and a natural inclination to solve problems to have a positive impact on the world around us. We use our distinctive blend of research, knowledge exchange, student projects and workplace simulations, to innovate for industry, organisations and networks. We take full advantage of the co-location of academics and students to take risks on ambitious projects, to push the boundaries through creative thinking and approaches, to deploy the latest technology and intellectual property, to quickly build a body of work to inform a scalable proposition. In turn, we learn from you and this feeds back through our teaching as we develop our students ready for an innovative and highly skilled workforce.

 As a member of the prestigious Santander Universities network, aimed at supporting entrepreneurship and providing academic and industrial placements, we can provide funding for work placements, conference travel, visits to partner Universities and provide knowledge and skills enhancement for our entrepreneurial students. 

Abertay offers a range of support schemes for new academic enterprise endeavours, including pump-priming research funding for new projects, involving undergraduates and postgraduates in the development of projects and prototypes, and hosting competitions and events (e.g. our annual DARE Academy games design competition).  We punch above our weight when it comes to innovation funding and we can help our external partners to identify the best way of driving a project, enterprise or innovation forward.  

If you have an idea, challenge or proposition, but you are unsure of how to take things forward, please get in touch with one of our Academic Enterprise Leaders who will be happy to discuss ideas with you.

Here at Abertay our researchers are used to working on interdisciplinary, or multidisciplinary, projects and can bring a range of skills and expertise to support business and other organisations goals. 

Our academic staff and research students have specialist knowledge that covers a breadth and depth of areas across the disciplinary spectrum, from business, food technology, psychology, and computing (with particular focus on cybersecurity and game development), through to social sciences and design.  

For more details on our research strengths please visit our Schools and Divisions as well as Research Themes.

If you would like to identify someone with expertise in a particular area please use our Staff Search.

If you would like more information on working with our staff and students please visit the following pages

• Work with our experts
• Work with our students

Abertay can provide a range of resources to support your business from access to labs equipped with cutting-edge facilities, through to presentation and social spaces large enough to accommodate most business needs. Our infrastructure is available to external organisations and our agile philosophy will assist in helping you take your business to the next level. 

Please visit our facilities and services section to learn more about what we can offer your business.