Help for small businesses with big ideas in Oxfordshire…

Small enterprises (SMEs’) are an important part of Oxfordshire’s innovation landscape. OxLEP Business, the county’s Growth Hub, is helping them overcome the challenges they face getting access to funding, resources and opportunities to improve their business skills.

The Innovation Support for Business (ISfB) programme connects SMEs to the wider innovation community with tailored support.

“We’re supporting smaller businesses to build the relationships they need, get the right commercial resources and to help them bring new ideas and products to market” said Tracy James, Programme Executive at OxLEP Business.

- One early ISfB Go-Create grant award winner is UKAEA spin-out Luffy AI, who are developing the control units for legs on multipurpose walking robots.

and his colleagues are using ISfB grant funding to undertake simulation testing of their controllers which will guide robotic limbs. The artificial intelligence learned in the simulations will ultimately lead to physical tests using models and accelerate the path to commercial operations.

“Boosting opportunities for SMEs, many of them with groundbreaking ideas, is at the heart of our programme. These vital resources and the infrastructure around research and innovation are essential, yet it can be difficult for SMEs to access them as easily as larger companies.”

Up until now, achieving this has been amongst the hardest challenges for applied AI and robotics. Based at Culham, Dr Matthew Carr The

Tracy James, Programme Executive, OxLEP Business

Dr Carr said: “This testing would not be happening without the grant from ISfB. Equally important to us has been the expert advice we’ve received about finding finance and creating our business plan.”