We hope you all had an enjoyable time over the holidays and, like us, are keen to see what 2024 has in store.
To kick off the year, we wanted to highlight a few dates for your diaries. Firstly, we’re hosting our Annual Business Awards at the Athena, Leicester this year on the 9th of May. Submissions are now being taken so we’d encourage all relevant businesses and innovators to get involved; it’s one of the best platforms to showcase what the life sciences sector here in the Midlands has to offer.
Click here to see which award category best suits you. We also hope to have something extra special lined up for the overall winner this year as part of our 20-year celebrations!
Whilst on the topic of the Annual Business Awards, we also have a new award category this year – Sustainability – sponsored by our Patron, Mills & Reeve. With the lead being taken by our sustainability champion Dr Ben Roberts, our intention is to help deliver achievable goals both for, and with, our members.
In June, Medilink Midlands, alongside some of our strategic partners and Medilink members, will return to the Med-Tech Innovation Expo at the NEC in Birmingham.
We’re also excited to confirm that this year’s Innovation Day will take place on Thursday 3rd October in Coventry. We know from previous attendee feedback that our annual conference and expo is one of our favoured key events of the year; with successful connections and collaborations formed year after year – so be sure to mark this date in your diaries!
As we’re celebrating our 20th anniversary this year, successfully supporting life science Innovation in the Midlands, we aim to make this a year to remember.
Across the regions, we’re actively working with various key delivery partners:
- Arise Innovation Hubs, part of Anglia Ruskin University to help innovators in the East of England get up and running.
- The University of Nottingham and Nottingham City Council, delivering ‘MeTAP’, part of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, aimed to provide access to a wide range of commercial benefits and know-how for Nottingham early-stage start-ups.
- Part of an Innovate UK-funded programme or part of the levelling up fund, the West Midlands Health Tech Innovation Accelerator (WMHTIA) is helping to drive commercialisation and raise the life sciences sector in the Midlands even higher.
- Health Innovation East Midlands & Health Innovation West Midlands, acting as the industry gateway to support the adoption and spread of innovation in the health and care sector.
You may have seen on social media that we will be asking for your input in the next Voice of Industry survey. We really would encourage you to be part of providing that feedback, so that we know firsthand your views and areas of need.
We’re also making improvements to some of our processes including the SIGs. Previously named Special Interest Groups, we will be relaunching these as Strategic Innovation Gateways with the aim of being more inclusive and delivering wider strategic initiatives. We’ll have more details on these groups in the forthcoming weeks.
Introduced in 2023, our Member Forums were well received by our membership, and we will continue to evolve the forums throughout 2024, along with our member and patron socials, helping us shape the future together.
From everybody at Medilink Midlands, we wish you a very successful and prosperous year ahead and as always, we look forward to working with – and for – you all.