Teesside University to help create thousands of jobs with £30 million investment

Teesside University is part of a £30 million scheme that will provide much-needed grants for investment in equipment and research by regional businesses, generating thousands of new jobs.

Let’s Grow is a Trinity Mirror initiative, with partners the BE Group, chartered accountancy firm UNW, and Teesside and Northumbria Universities, that was recently successful in winning £30 million of Regional Growth Fund grant to encourage business growth.

Let’s Grow will fund a two-year programme of business support which aims to create around 3,600 jobs. Funding is expected to be released from the spring of 2013.

Professor Cliff Hardcastle, the University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Business Engagement, said: 'This is a great opportunity to provide regional companies with access to the finance they need to grow, through research and capital investment, and the university's role is critical in helping this to happen.'

He added: 'We are delighted to be involved in this scheme and the investment is fantastic for the region. Here at Teesside University we have a wide breadth of expertise in working with, establishing and supporting businesses and we will use every area of that expertise to support the Let’s Grow scheme.'

Let’s Grow is one of many successful business partnerships for the University, including Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, Knowledge Exchange Internships and the Graduates for Business scheme. The University was also recently awarded £1.9 million of European funding to support enterprise and develop talent in the digital sector, as well as £1 million from the Government’s Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) in order to support employers in delivering higher education to people already in work.

Teesside University also houses DigitalCity Innovation (DCI) which, since its inception in 2008, has created almost 200 companies across a number of sectors including computer animation, web design, advertising, nanotechnology and forensic science.

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