Despite disruptions to rail services and severe weather over the weekend, CALMARE’s launch party attracted an impressive turnout, with dozens of business representatives from all over the region attending. About 60 delegates, from manufacturing companies, product development start-ups and a host of other partners and supporters found out more about the centre’s offering at the event, which was hosted at the University of Exeter’s Innovation Centre. Funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the University of Exeter and industry partners, CALMARE provides companies with access to the expertise, advice and technology to help them improve their products and processes.
A networking opportunity over breakfast was followed by introductory talks from:
- Ken Evans, Dean of the College of Engineering, Maths and Physical Sciences, where the centre is based
- Oana Ghita, Lead Academic for the centre
- Paul McCutchion, the centre’s commercial manager
John Bessant, from the University’s Business School, which is working closely with CALMARE, delivered a presentation about the importance of innovation, a pertinent topic to the product developers in the audience.
Following tours of the centre’s state of the art laboratories and facilities, and equipment demonstrations by the team, delegates watched presentations delivered by Ray Khan, from centre partner Hambleside Danelaw, which is providing the project access to its grinding facilities, and from Jason Goozee from Europlastix, which collects and reprocessed recycled plastics, and has completed an initial project with the CALMARE team.
Businesses reported that they found the event helpful and informative. Peter Stevens, of JPRS Developments, based just outside Newton Abbot, has already benefited from the 12 hours fully funded support offered by CALMARE to small and medium enterprises in the South West. He attended with his wife and business partner Jacqui, and said: “I wanted to say thank you for an instructive, useful and enjoyable event today at the official launch of CALMARE.
“It really broadened my understanding of your remit and areas of interest – even though we are already working together – and gave Jacqui a great insight into current and potential areas of collaboration.”
Paul McCutchion said: “I am absolutely delighted to see so many representatives from our region’s businesses here for the launch. This fantastic event really showcases what we have to offer, through our facilities, experience and materials development.”
Following our successful launch event, CALMARE is planning a programme of workshops, based on what we think will be of interest to businesses and what businesses tell us is of interest to them. If you have any suggestions about workshops you would like us to run, feel free to contact us at