0.5 Results  (Page 3/20)

University of Wales Swansea was highlighted in this report as one of the five awards: “Understanding the genotoxic potential of ultra-fine superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles” (University of Wales, Swansea) - £450k/3yrs, for studying the genotoxic properties of iron oxide nanoparticles with the aim to develop high-trough-put screening tests for genotoxic effects; Aims to understand dose-response relationships, to inform future in vivo studies and predictive approaches (DIUS 2009).

Nanotechnology knowledge transfer network questionnaire

Companies by size and annual revenue

Examining the company profile by sector to identify growth trends and structure this focused on employment and revenue, the results of which are as presented above in [link] and [link] Small companies are key indicators of growth sectors (OECD 2005, BIS 2010) interestingly all of the sectors had a higher proportion of small companies with of those firms identifying themselves as Bio-Tech having 85% of its respondents having less than 100 employees. This was followed by firms that identified themselves as Hi-Tech/Telecom with 67% of its respondents has less than 100 employees with both Manufacturing and Other having 58% of their respondents with under 100 employees. Inclusive to this was the 70% differential between the respondents of companies with less than 100 employees and those that had over 100 employees. Where as both Manufacturing and Other had about a 15% differential between companies with less than 100 employees and companies with more than 100 employees. When looking at revenue size by sector of respondents it is interesting to find that within Bio-Tech again took the lead with 98% of the respondents who identified themselves as operating within that sector had annual revenue of less than £10m. Bio-Tech was followed by Hi-Tech/Telecom with 75% of its respondents under the threshold of £10m annual revenue yet the differential between the companies with annual revenue of over £10m was only 50%. Interestingly though was that within the companies that fell outside of Bio-Tech, Manufacturing, and Hi-Tech/Telecom, noted as Other, 57% of those respondents had an annual revenue of over £10m. Looking both at company size and annual revenue it can be said that all three of the sectors identified are growth sectors, with Bio-Tech being clearly in the lead.

Bio-Tech with 85% under 100 employees and 92% with annual revenues would be more in the areas of Application and Product Innovation at the stages of Early Market/Emerging Industry where the primary concern is raising funds to engage in early stage R&D, i.e., Application Innovation (creating differentiation by finding and exploiting a new application or use for an existing technology, the cornerstone of solution-oriented marketing (Moore 2005)) or Product Innovation (An innovation type in the product leadership zone that differentiates a growth market position by R&D to improve. (Moore 2005)), these companies are in the development stages and can be there for long periods, as the case is in pharmaceutical developments. These companies generally are high risk high return and often receive first stage investment from “Friends&Family” or Regional Funding Mechanisms. Being at the early stages of development also means that those companies are looking to innovate and seek assistance in several forms. Hi-Tech/Telecom with 67% under 100 employees and 75% under £10m in annual revenue would be more situated at a Process Innovation stage (a next generation of emerging offerings (Moore 2005)). Where as Manufacturing and Other had 58% less than 100 employees and Manufacturing had 68% with annual revenues under £10m, Other had 42% with annual revenue less than £10m and 58% with over £10m annual revenue.