The Scottish Inward Investment Catalyst Fund has awarded a further £40,000 to strengthen ties between businesses based outside Scotland and Scottish universities.

Four companies, headquartered in the US, Finland, and England, will collaborate with a range of Scottish universities with a view to establishing operations here.

All collaborative projects will support a net-zero, health, and the wellbeing economy with the principles of fair work and sustainable, inclusive growth.

Included in the successful projects are one from US-headquartered Neocycl, a green metals technology company – in collaboration with the University of Strathclyde – which addresses the performance of their low carbon copper recovery process. The project has been awarded £10,000.

Finland-based real estate and finance software company SkenarioLabs has been awarded £9,700 and will collaborate with the University of Edinburgh to identify the analytics, factors and data information needed to develop and tailor their software platform for potential new markets.

Bristol-based electric aircraft manufacturer Vertical Aerospace will leverage expertise from the University of Strathclyde to analyse and develop an understanding of degradation of carbon fibre when carrying electric current and has been awarded £9,938.

London startup tech company Heat Wayv will get £9,410 to carry out a strategic feasibility review of the application of low carbon heating technology in Scotland’s new build and retrofit housing sectors, collaborating with the University of Edinburgh.

Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise, Ivan McKee, launched the fund in December 2021 with a total of £100,000 over two rounds this year, aimed at attracting businesses to invest in Scotland by establishing research and development partnerships with universities.

McKee commented: “Attracting businesses to invest in Scotland is a key driver of the Scottish Government’s long-term economic wellbeing and prosperity ambitions. EY’s Annual Attractiveness Survey 2022 showed Scotland has already established itself as the UK’s top performing region for attracting inward investment, outside of London.

“For Scotland to remain competitive in the current challenging climate, we need ongoing close collaboration between our higher education institutions and industry in areas of our academic strengths.

“The projects chosen for the current phase of the Inward Investment Catalyst Funding align with the opportunity areas identified in our Inward Investment Plan, demonstrating that our evidence-based Plan to attract values-based investment is working.”

He added: “These projects also support the ambitions set out in our National Strategy for Economic Transformation to attract high quality inward investment and technologies required in emerging areas such as energy transition and the decarbonisation of transport and space.”

Howell Davies, Sector and Business Engagement Manager, Interface, said: “These projects are highly innovative and technical. They reflect the world-leading expertise Scottish universities have to offer international companies, particularly in key areas such as energy transition and decarbonisation of heat and transport.”