Air

AIR - Academy for Innovation & Research

AIR, University College Falmouth's planned Academy for Innovation & Research, will be a business-facing, creative hub designed to establish a new way for Higher Education to work with businesses in Cornwall. 

Based on the Tremough Campus, AIR will operate both as a multi-disciplinary research and development laboratory and as a creative facilitation space. Its focus will be on raising levels of business innovation, competitiveness and productivity in Cornwall.

At its core will be a design innovation centre, a primarily open-plan building enabling researchers and business development staff to work with businesses in flexible project teams. At the heart of the building will be a technology-rich, 3D enabled, interactive 'Sandpit' for creative idea generation and planning of R&D projects.

AIR will focus on two specific areas - the digital economy and sustainable design - that have both national significance and a particular resonance in Cornwall.

The Digital Economy

AIR will work with regional and national providers as well as the region's businesses on the creative application and competitive potential of convergent and emerging media technologies, next generation networks and new business models within the digital economy

Sustainable Design

AIR will support the design, development and prototyping of new solutions to meet a wide range of social, economic and business challenges in Cornwall. This will build on DOTT Cornwall - the Designs of the Time collaboration between University College Falmouth, the Design Council and Cornwall Council.

Services for business

AIR plans to deliver five new services for businesses:

• A Digital Portal - an online platform that connects AIR and Cornwall's creative talent with a wide range of stakeholders, including potential partners and investors, regionally, nationally and internationally to offer new business opportunities.
• Sandpits - facilitative environments to drive free-thinking and new approaches using an interdisciplinary mix of participants around a common shared idea, goal or challenge.
• Live Projects - an integrated programme of research and development (R&D) delivered in collaboration with business.
• Skills Acquisition - new courses to support graduate entrepreneurship, retention in Cornwall and Continuing Professional Development courses (CPD) to enable those already in work to up-skill in the fields of digital economy, design and creative entrepreneurship.
• Support for research and new product development with access to specialist equipment, such as machinery for rapid prototyping and concept design.

Background

The creative industries are the fastest growing sector in the UK economy and will be increasingly important to the future of Cornwall's economy, alongside the use of creative skills within industry and business development.

In 2009, the Convergence Partnership Office for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly identified University College Falmouth as the inevitable partner to help businesses in Cornwall engage with design innovation. This decision was built on our established role as Cornwall's major hub for training and research in the creative industries. UCF, in consultation with a wide range of businesses and support agencies, developed the concept of AIR to link the University College with the successful economic regeneration of Cornwall and the growth of its high-value businesses.

Completion of the AIR building is planned for 2012 and AIR is expected to create an additional 253 jobs for the region.