Scotland’s Biobased Manufacturing Launchpad Showcase
On 7 October, leaders from across industry, academia, investment, and government came together to celebrate the achievements of the Scottish BioBased Manufacturing Launchpad, one of the UKRI Launchpad programmes funded by Innovate UK at a showcase event in Glasgow delivered by IBioIC in partnership with Innovate UK.
Since the award of the Launchpad project in 2023 to a partnership between Scottish Enterprise, IBioIC, and Forth Valley College, £7 million has been invested across 31 projects to support the growth of biobased manufacturing in Scotland.
Alyn Smith MSP, Minister for Innovation, Technology, and Tertiary Education, delivered a rousing keynote that demonstrated enthusiasm for the sector and the opportunities offered by Industrial Biotechnology (IB).
The Minister also launched the refreshed National Plan for IB Industrial Biotechnology, the roadmap to grow Scotland’s IB sector to £2 billion by 2023.
Keynote speakers Adrian Gillespie, Chief Executive of Scottish Enterprise, and Dr Rick Holland, Deputy Director at Innovate UK delivered sector insights and reinforced a message of support for economic transformation.
Launchpad projects showcased on the day included engineering biology tailored microorganisms to produce Omega 3, drop-in replacements for plastics used in cosmetics, peat-free growing mediums, enzymes modified to degrade gluten for coeliac-safe bread products, and selectively degradable plastics.
A key takeaway from the event was not only the success of the Launchpad project in Scotland, but the added value derived from support of the Cluster Management Organisation to nurture innovations. Looking forward, Grangemouth will also offer a much needed resource to help scale projects to commercial fruition.
Innovate UK believes that the national Launchpad funding scheme will help accelerate emerging clusters, support commercialisation and attract further investment, build local leadership, enhance connections, and generate a stronger and more mature cluster.
The event proved a useful opportunity to flag other important initiatives including an Investor Forum on 27 March in London, the call for applications for cohort three of Biotech Innovators: Train to Scale, and the imminent launch of the ECIV Open Funding Call 2 in November.