University of Edinburgh

The UK Hub for AIMday

University of Edinburgh: the UK Hub for AIMday

The University of Edinburgh was the first university in the United Kingdom to organise an AIMday and has hosted hundreds of company representatives and academic researchers at many AIMday events since 2014. The University of Edinburgh is the UK hub for AIMday and provides training and support to other UK universities.

AIMday at University of Edinburgh

Edinburgh Innovations is the University of Edinburgh’s commercialisation service and harnesses AIMday as one of several mechanisms used to facilitate University engagement with industry and access to world-leading academic research and expertise.

The multi-disciplinary format of AIMday lends itself well to the many academic disciplines represented at the University. It is proven to effectively explore solutions to real world challenges and to create new opportunities for collaboration between industry partners and academics.

AIMday has become a well-established tool at Edinburgh, and we have been successful in using the format to drive industry engagement – both in terms of exposing existing industry partners to new research areas of the University, but also as a stepping stone for new contacts to explore everything that the University of Edinburgh has to offer.

Ian Sharp, Head of Marketing and Engagement, Edinburgh Innovations
As the workshops are based on challenges submitted by participating companies that our interested academics and researchers select from to explore further, it is a win-win for both parties.

I particularly appreciated the interdisciplinary nature of the proposed problems and the researchers discussing them. The industrial representatives really bought into the idea of AIMdays, providing excellent opportunities to discuss where academic research can be used in the real world. They were also keen to discuss other issues faced in their sectors, beyond those directly proposed, which has resulted in further, genuinely impactful research projects.

Dr Ben Goddard, Lecturer, School of Mathematics, University of Edinburgh
Get in touch to find out how Edinburgh Innovations can help by providing AIMday training and support email us EPSRCIAA@ei.ed.ac.uk