The Eastern Corridor Medical Engineering Centre (ECME) has announced the list of successful applicant companies under its recent Mini Projects First Call (COVID-19)- one of which is leading Lisburn toolmaker Ad-Vance Engineering, which will see more that £300,000 in grant funding channelled into healthcare projects responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
COVID-19 is having a significant impact on the research and innovation community, both in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Scotland and internationally. ECME invited proposals which aligned with the challenge areas identified by the World Health Organisation including the provision of PPE equipment and the supply of rapid diagnostic kits.
All the funded projects have now commenced and will run for a period of 12 weeks.
Professor Jim McLaughlin, Head of the School of Engineering at Ulster University and Programme Director for ECME said:
“We were very impressed by the response to the ECME COVID-19 Call both in terms of the number of applications received but also the readiness of the applicant companies to respond swiftly to the COVID-19 pandemic. We strongly believe that the awards will help target the local and national response to the pandemic but also lead to longer term economic impact across the region, especially in the development of new products, platforms and expertise that will eventually be harnessed for future development beyond COVID-19.”
Speaking about the Programme Roger Vance, Managing Director of Ad-Vance Engineering said:
“The ECME lead partner, Ulster University, has a long-history of creating value from their knowledge base, so we’re absolutely delighted to have the opportunity to work with them on this ECME Mini Project, which we believe will produce highly commercially beneficial outputs”
The ECME Programme, including the Mini Projects are funded by the European Union’s Interreg VA Programme which is managed by the Special EU Programmes body (SEUPB).
ABOUT ECME
The Eastern Corridor Medical Engineering Centre (ECME) is a collaborative research project focusing on improving cardiovascular health. It is a partnership between five leading academic research centres, Ulster University, Dublin City University, University College Dublin, University of the Highlands and Islands, Dundalk Institute of Technology, and the Southern Health & Social Care Trust.
ECME is funded by the European Union’s Interreg VA Programme which is managed by the Special EU Programmes body (SEUPB). The €283m INTERREG VA Programme is one of 60 similar funding programmes across the European Union that have been designed to help overcome the issues that arise from the existence of a border. These issues range from access to transport, health and social care services, environmental issues, and enterprise development.
