Partnerships and initatives supporting health innovation in Scotland

Health innovation is an exciting and dynamic area with a range of stakeholders from all sectors working collaboratively to position Scotland as a world leader in health innovation, contribute to a thriving economy and support faster adoption of innovation across health and social care.

With a world class NHS, world-renowned universities and research strengths, high levels of investment in R&D and a number of internationally innovative health companies operating in Scotland including those based at Edinburgh BioQuarter and BioCity, Scotland is well established as an innovative nation.

Commitment to build on these strengths and further Scotland’s ambitions to be a world-leading entrepreneurial and innovative nation are set out in:

• 2017 Scottish Life Sciences Strategy
• Scotland Can Do - Boosting Scotland's Innovation Performance: An Innovation Action Plan For Scotland
• Health and Social Care Delivery Plan (December 2016).

A new interactive directory - Scottish Health Research and Innovation Ecosystem - also showcases the health research and innovation landscape in Scotland including the NHS, clinical, academic and trade organisations.

A range of initiatives and partnerships also a well established as part of the overall drive to support health innovation in Scotland including:

Scotland’s Innovation Centres

Over the last 5 years six Innovation Centre’s directly aligned to Life Sciences, with core funding of around £100m have been established:

• Stratified Medicine Scotland Innovation Centre
• Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre
• Digital Health and Care Institute
• Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre
• Centre for Sensor and Imaging Systems
• The Data Lab.

These centres are designed to link academia and industry to turn innovation into commercial value, making Scotland more competitive within the UK and internationally.

Scottish Health Technologies Group

An advisory group set up to provide assistance to NHS Scotland Health Boards when considering selected health technologies, excluding medicines which will be reviewed by the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC).

Health Innovation Assessment Portal (HIAP – Scotland)

Encourages prospective providers of new and/or innovative products and solutions to put them forward enabling NHS Scotland to assess how the solution might support strategic aims, and associated costs and benefits.

Innovation Hubs/Clusters

Local Innovation hubs within NHS Boards to support the development and implementation of innovative ideas created locally including NHS Grampian Innovation hub who recently launched their Big Pitch event to support and encourage local innovators.

Innovation Challenges

Scottish Enterprise work in partnership with Innovate UK and a range of public sector organisations to fund and promote a series of innovation challenges currently faced by the UK's public sector.