AIDC Centre Becomes Knowledge Transfer Centre

October 24, 2008

The Automatic Identification & Data Capture Centre for Wales, based at the University of Glamorgan has become Wales’ first Knowledge Transfer Centre to be funded under the Welsh Assembly Government’s A4B project.

Academic Expertise for Business (A4B), a £70 million six year project funded by the Welsh Assembly Government and European Structural Funds, is geared to ensure Wales maximises the economic impact of its academic institutions.

The Centre at Glamorgan works towards increasing both the application areas and the industry sectors which can take advantage of these technologies that include bar coding, two-dimensional coding, magnetic coding, and radio frequency identification (RFID).

The technologies are used from everything from animal tagging to warehouse management systems and by the healthcare sector to ensure error free treatment and by the food industry for traceability.

A4B will support a range of activities in higher and further educational institutions to develop more effective knowledge transfer mechanisms, to commercialise their Intellectual Property, develop new products and processes, increase business investment in R&D and develop and exploit the research base.

The intention is to improve and accelerate the transfer of knowledge and expertise from Wales’ world-class research base into “added value” for the economy.

Ieuan Wyn Jones, Minister for the Economy and Transport, said A4B provides Wales with an exceptional opportunity to rationalise and improve the support for collaboration between academia and business. Building on, and taking forward, previous highly successful knowledge transfer initiatives.

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