Queen’s University Belfast has opened a £7.5m international research hub in partnership with Seagate Technology, the hard drive and storage solution manufacturer. The research hub ANSIN is based in the School of Mathematics and Physics at Queen’s, with Seagate providing £7.5m of equipment. Seagate is also supplying £250,000 to fund business development activities to encourage other companies to participate in ANSIN. The research hub will aim to make advances in information and data storage.

The University of Northampton launched its 3D immersive technology centre NVision on 26 May to an audience of small businesses from the engineering sector. Guests were given the opportunity to drive a full-size 2007 F1 Season car around a virtual track. Based at the university’s Newton building, home to the school of science and technology, NVision is part of the Solutions for Business portfolio, a package of publicly funded business-support products and services, and is part-financed by the European Union, European Regional Development Fund and supported by the East Midlands Development Agency.

Bolton College and the University of Bolton have called for businesses to support their new scholarship fund, to build up the workplace skills, knowledge and talent of the area’s future employees, by providing graduate apprenticeships. The 2010 Fund will be used to provide scholarship places, worth £1,000 a year, for locally based full-time students at the university, studying on degree programmes in business, IT, construction, public and health services, civil engineering and sport.

Oncimmune, a University of Nottingham spin-out company, has developed a blood test which will aid detection of cancer as much as five years earlier than current testing methods. Using immuno-biomarker technology, Oncimmune’s new technique will enable physicians to discover the result of their patients’ test within one week, and the company said it would “lead to a better prognosis for a significant number of cancer sufferers”. The first test, for lung cancer, will be launched in the UK early next year.

Lancaster University is leading a £2m project to help the region’s small businesses to make use of additive manufacturing technology, which uses digital data to build a product from scratch, layer by layer. The technology has been available for more than 15 years in the UK but has previously been relegated to prototype manufacturing. Funded by the Northwest European Regional Development Fund, with match funding from the university, the three-year project aims to work with 150 small companies, creating 50 news jobs and safeguarding 100 more.

A £1m study will identify areas of the UK that are suitable for the use of the Carbon Capture and Storage (CSS) technology being developed by the University of Nottingham. The technology allows carbon dioxide to be ‘locked up’ inside rocks, creating a solid carbonate product that can be stored, or turned into bricks or filler for concrete. The study, being carried out by the Energy Technologies Institute, will provide an estimate of how many areas in the UK could be used, and give an indication of the economics of CO2 capture using CCS.

The European Union target of reducing car CO2 emissions to 95 grams per kilometre (g/km) by 2020 should be more ambitious, according to a report written by researchers at the Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society at Cardiff University. The report, commissioned by Greenpeace International, argued a lower target of 80 g/km could be readily achieved with a combination of new technology, weight reduction, performance reduction and downsizing. A review of the current legislation is scheduled no later than the end of 2012.

The University of Portsmouth has signed a deal to provide a bespoke Masters programme to Hewlett-Packard (HP) employees. Executives at the IT brand will study ‘lean’ methodology, which is designed to help them make the company more efficient. The programme is based on identifying waste in an organisation and focusing on customer needs. Graduates of the course will be honoured as a ‘black belt’ within HP and will receive a Masters in Strategic Quality Management from the university.

Leeds Metropolitan University has appointed Barbara Colledge as dean of the faculty of business and law. She left the interim role of dean of the faculty of innovation north at the university to take up the position. Before that, Colledge was also dean of partnerships for students. She is a graduate of the university, where she studied quantity surveying, and has also been awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Cardiff University has developed two marketing programmes tailored to the needs of businesses in the Heads of the Valleys region of Wales. The courses, Marketing: Getting Your Message Across and Marketing: Utilising Online Tools, consist of two half-day workshops in two weeks. The university’s Open for Business team worked with the Heads of the Valley Innovation Programme to find out what skills and training were most relevant to them.

What’s the big idea?, which starts today, is a national pilot campaign highlighting the essential role of universities in the UK and their impact on the economy, culture, society and the environment. It’s the slogan of Universities’ Week and this year all the UK’s higher education achievements are being promoted under one single banner. With the support of more than 100 universities and organisations, the campaign will be showcasing big ideas coming out of the country’s universities and offering people the chance to get involved.

Oxford University’s Saïd Business School is offering a four-day private equity programme between 28 June and 1 July. The Oxford Private Equity Programme will be led by professor Tim Jenkinson, with guest lecturers from private equity companies. The intensive four-day programme includes practical understanding of private equity as an asset class and in emerging markets, valuation, deal structuring and leveraged finance. It will be delivered in connection with CFA Institute, the not-for-profit association of investment professionals.

Manchester Metropolitan University Business School (MMUBS) is hosting an event on 9 July exploring employee engagement. The importance of employee engagement has been identified by research into the area, something the government has acknowledged by carrying out Britain’s largest-ever survey on the subject, involving half a million civil servants. Held in its Aytoun Building, the MMUBS event features a key-note address from Nita Clarke, co-author of the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills-commissioned Engaging for Success.