Sheffield Uni wins £4.9m bid to enhance IoT collaboration

Sheffield, the lead university of the successful bid has been awarded £4.9m by Research England’s Connecting Capability fund (CCF) to fund the Promoting the Internet of Things via Collaborations between HEIs & Industry (Pitch-In) project.

The Pitch-In collaboration will benefit the UK via wide-scale collaboration between academic institutions coupled with an extensive network of public and private sector collaborators.

The project, led by the University of Sheffield, will investigate the barriers to successful IoT take-up, trial solutions, and capture and share good practice learning outcomes.

The collaborative project will also disseminate guidance regionally, nationally and globally and will support the UK government’s Industrial Strategy by significantly enhancing the commercialisation and wider exploitation prospects of UK IoT research and technology.

Professor John Clark from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Sheffield commented: “The Internet of Things underpins much of the current drive to increased industrial automation and enhanced services and is set to have major impact on most of our lives.

“The Research England Pitch-In collaboration between Sheffield, Newcastle, Oxford and Cambridge will enhance the universities’ ability to work with each other and with their regions to promote adoption of the Internet of Things, particularly in manufacturing, health, smart cities and energy.

“Our inclusion of management and social sciences experts also allows us to take a more holistic approach to facilitating IoT collaborations.

“With the help of some major industrial collaborators, such as the global engineering organisation Siemens, sector and technology specialists and networks such as the High Value Manufacturing and Digital Catapults and the Northern Health Sciences Alliance, regulatory authorities such as OFGEM, and increasing engagement of businesses of various sizes, we have the potential to increase the adoption and exploitation of IoT technology in our regions and beyond, and consequently bring significant societal benefits.”

The Connecting Capability Fund supports universities in working together and with businesses and other partners to commercialise research and share good practice and capacity.

The Fund is highlighted in the government’s Industrial Strategy and will help achieve its aims of enhancing UK industrial competitiveness and productivity.

It builds on established processes and the success of Research England’s HEIF programme.