Essex celebrates inspirational business collaborations

Successful businesses and University of Essex researchers who have collaborated to develop innovative ideas to drive business growth have been recognised at a special awards ceremony.

Essex’s annual Celebration of Innovation event featured five awards for individuals and companies working with the University through Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) to deliver transformational solutions to business challenges.

Award-winning companies included Railscape, the Rayleigh based specialist service provider to the rail industry, which claimed the Best KTP (SME) Award for improving both the safety and efficiency of railway vegetation surveying.

The Best KTP (Large Company) Award went to Preqin for its pioneering project that’s bringing together data science and network science and applying them to the world of alternative assets.

Omer Saeed, who is working with car suspension experts On Air Suspension, scooped the award for Best KTP Associate.

He was recognised for his strength and understanding of the business’s growth strategy, as well as going above and beyond to deliver the project’s mission.

Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Research, Professor Chris Greer, who presented the awards at Wivenhoe House on the University’s Colchester Campus, said: “The winning businesses have all come up with innovative ideas which have generated real impact and ultimately resulted in greater success.

“Our Knowledge Transfer Partnerships exemplify how collaboration between our world-leading researchers and growing businesses can lead directly to economic growth. They are also benefiting businesses in other ways, such as enhancing practices and raising standards across industries.

“The awards celebrate the best of the best, but there is no doubting the positive impact that all of our KTPs are having on communities and business.”

Dr Hossein Anisi from the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering received the Best Academic Award for his outstanding contributions to grant-funded projects over several years and for his most recent work with Wilkin & Sons, makers of the world-famous Tiptree jams.

The final award of the night went to long-term partners, Mondaq, who walked away with the Lasting Impact Award after working with Essex for more than five years across two successful KTPs.

This year’s celebration was hosted by Natalie Cramp, CEO of Profusion – another long-standing University partner, and featured talks from Jonathan Roomer, Co-Founder of YuLife, and Dr Ali Rais Shaghaghi, Applied AI and Machine Learning Lead at JP Morgan Chase and Co and a former Essex KTP Associate.

The winners

Best KTP (SME)

The partnership with Railscape has developed the ability to remotely survey and monitor trackside vegetation for the UK’s railways using drones and AI technology.

The project has already delivered working models which are helping the company to secure new contracts and increase their revenues.

More widely, the work will help to make trackside vegetation management more efficient and targeted, helping to reduce the costs and risks involved, and to reduce unnecessary biodiversity and biomass loss by targeting efforts at problem species and specimens.

Best KTP (Large Company)

Preqin and the University of Essex are currently collaborating on their second KTP together.

This partnership brings together data science and network science – two ways of handling complex data from completely different disciplinary perspectives – and applies them to the field of alternative asset management.

The partnership is already delivering considerable value, with over 4,000 of the company’s clients have access to the project outputs so far.

Best Academic 2023

Dr Hossein Anisi, a Reader from the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, has been contributing his outstanding expertise to grant-funded partnerships over the years.

Most recently, he has been working with Wilkin & Sons to help them use Internet of Things (IoT) technology to monitor their berry crops.

This project has contributed to Hossein becoming an associate Editor of ‘IEEE Transactions on AgriFood Electronics’, a prestigious smart agriculture journal.

Best KTP Associate Award 2023

On Air Suspension has created a new state-of-the-art air suspension product, thanks to its work with Essex KTP Associate, Omer Saeed (pictured above). Omer has demonstrated not only exceptional technical skill and commitment to the project, but also a genuine willingness to understand the business and its commercial drivers, which has helped him to align his approach perfectly with their growth strategy, making the KTP all the more impactful.

Lasting Impact Award

Over the last five years, Mondaq’s two KTPs have helped the company to transform its culture and business, supporting Mondaq to achieve a sector-leading reputation for having data at the heart of everything it does.

Also, Mondaq has employed University of Essex graduates, hosted student interns and the work completed together has had a huge impact on the University’s teaching and research in data science.

Find out more about Essex’s business collaborations at www.essex.ac.uk/business or contact the team via innovation@essex.ac.uk.