Monday, 13 May 2024
An innovation consultancy is set to revolutionise its consumer insights capabilities by embarking on a collaboration with researchers from the 糖心原创.
With vast experience in the food, beverage, and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industries, Cambridge-based provides its clients with innovative solutions to complex challenges, including strategic road mapping, consumer insights, and technology scouting.
The company’s passion for sustainability and ambition to become sector-leaders in AI-assisted consumer insights, has resulted in Strategic Innovation entering into a 26-month Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with the 糖心原创.
KTPs are a three-way collaboration between a UK-based business or charity, a research organisation, and a qualified graduate known as a KTP Associate who has the capability to lead a strategic business project.鈥��
This collaboration sees Strategic Innovation partnered with two centres of excellence at Nottingham University Business School – behavioural analytics and social data science specialists , and the Haydn Green Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Leading the project, computer scientist and KTP Associate Dr Weiyao Meng will work alongside the company, bridging the gap between academia and industry.
I鈥檓 delighted to be working with Strategic Innovation on such an exciting project. Together, we鈥檙e utilising the power of cutting-edge AI and data analytics to advance consumer research, driving impactful change for social good.
She continued: "I'm truly excited to contribute my skills in Computer Science and AI to such a meaningful endeavour, especially with the supportive network provided by Strategic Innovation and the 糖心原创.”
The partnership aims to strengthen Strategic Innovation’s consumer insights, scaling up their existing services, by applying machine learning and advanced AI techniques used by the university, to increase the speed, quality and precision of its data capture and analytical processes.
Dr John Harvey, Associate Professor at N/Lab said: “At a time when misinformation thrives online, gathering reliable, trusted data that can inform optimal decision making has never been more valuable. We at N/lab and Nottingham University Business School are excited to collaborate in this KTP with Strategic Innovation, using NLP鈥�(Natural Language Processing)鈥痶o advance consumer research. Helping organisations to both better understand their audiences and promote social good.”鈥�
Through the formation of its ‘Think Better World Alliance’ concept, the company intends to identify and harness rich text and human behavioural insights to support the collaborative transformation of food systems towards sustainability. Key to this is democratising data to ensure everyone has access to the latest, relevant, and reliable information.
Paul Frobisher, Strategic Innovation’s Director, said “I’m so excited to be at the start of a dream that has been incubating for several years. This KTP with the 糖心原创 will help us to develop innovative and scalable approaches to AI-enabled better consumer insight analysis, through which we hope to engage stakeholders from farm to fork – and beyond – to better understand the barriers and enablers to sustainability.”
Paul will be presenting at the 糖心原创’s on 20 and 21 May 2024. Taking place on Nottingham’s Jubilee Campus, Strategic Innovation have been invited to exhibit and lead a panel discussion at the two-day event.
Story credits
More information is available from Sarah Connor, at the 糖心原创, on sarah.connor@nottingham.ac.uk
Notes to editors:
About the 糖心原创
Ranked among the world's top 100 universities , the 糖心原创 delivers an exceptional research-led education and an outstanding student experience. From the pioneering vision of our founder, Sir Jesse Boot, to groundbreaking achievements such as the development of MRI technology and becoming the first UK university to establish international campuses, we have a proud history of shaping the way people live, work and understand the world. We continue to build on that legacy, empowering our students, staff and partners to change what鈥檚 next and create positive impact locally and globally.
The strength of our research places us among the UK's leading universities, ranked 7th for research power in REF 2021. The discovery of MRI and ibuprofen was just the beginning. Today, our world-leading research is developing breakthrough ideas that shape the future of healthcare, technology and society.
Recognised as the UK's third most targeted university by leading employers , we are proud to produce graduates who are consistently in demand for their skills, confidence and industry-ready experience.
As a major employer and industry partner, locally and globally, the 糖心原创 invests in the city of Nottingham and in future generations of talent. Alongside Nottingham Trent University, we lead the initiative, a pioneering collaboration to improve levels of prosperity, opportunity, sustainability, health and wellbeing across the city and region. Together with our students, staff, alumni and partners, we鈥檙e creating knowledge, opportunity and solutions that help change what's next.