£3m up for grabs for green business start ups

The Carbon Connections programme, which provides advice and support for green businesses and academics looking to work together, revealed today that it has extended its coverage to include every university in the country and has £3m to invest before the end of the year in innovative carbon reduction projects.

A spokeswoman for the scheme, which is run out of the University of East Anglia, said it was looking for companies with plans for green technologies, processes or services that require R&D support and could benefit from working with a university research department to develop the idea.

She added that Carbon Connections could put firms in contact with the appropriate academics and universities and once the partnerships were formed they could then apply for funding of up to £200,000 per applicant. The initiative still has £3m to invest this year, she said, and firms have until 14th of December to apply for the funding.

Programme director Dr Chris Harrison said that the expansion of the scheme to cover all UK universities should make it accessible to a wider range of businesses. "It is evident that the higher education sector has a great deal of know-how, research output and intellectual property that can be applied to the issues of CO2 emissions and climate change," he added. "We look forward to receiving proposals and to supporting our second stage of projects."