The Edinburgh-Stanford Link/About the Link/Introduction

introduction to the Edinburgh-Stanford Link

In February 2002, the Scottish economic development agency Scottish Enterprise awarded the University of Edinburgh a fund of £6 million to develop a collaborative research and commercialisation programme with Stanford University in California.

The focus of this five year programme, called the Edinburgh-Stanford Link, is on basic and strategic research in language technology, entrepreneurship training, and technology transfer and commercialisation.

The Link is unique. Not only does it bring together two universities consistently ranked top for computer research in their respective countries, but the goals of the initiative are predominantly economic.

Tomorrow's technology....today!

The main aim of the ES Link is to generate new opportunities for the creation of wealth by transforming advances in language technology into innovative, commercial products.

This will generate solid and lasting benefits to the universities, to business and to the Scottish economy as a whole. Involvement with this exciting, groundbreaking project offers significant advantages to business.

Applications for speech and language technology ranges from generating personalities for computer characters to the semantic web, and from talking homes to search engines capable of answering specific queries.

These technologies are not hype. Whether you are a cutting-edge technology developer, or a business that simply uses technology, it's important you are aware of how the latest innovations may affect your products and markets.

The Link helps business understand which technologies are relevant to their sector and aids the development of an innovation strategy specific for each company. Companies are also offered the chance to influence the direction of future Link research in some cases.

Benefits to Scottish business include:

Early access to world-beating technology, offering local companies a significant competitive edge normally reserved for global corporations.
Help understanding the impact of key technologies, and assistance in the development of innovation and R&D strategies for specific industry sectors.
Access to world-class researchers and post-graduates skilled in the latest communications technology, with experience turning research into competitive advantage.
Helping SMEs punch above their weight around the world by being seen to be working with the best research centres in the world.

Benefits to Scotland include:

A stream of highly skilled, commercially aware graduates with the most up-to-date and cutting edge training in language and HCI technologies anywhere in the world.
A growing reputation as a country which encourages innovation and facilitates its commercialisation - and is attractive to inward investors.
The development of the kind of entrepreneurial culture in our universities and research institutes that Stanford and Silicon Valley are renowned for.
New spin-out companies and start-ups, and the high value, highly skilled jobs that will go along with them.

Collaborators

The University of Edinburgh
Stanford University
Scottish Enterprise

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