The money will be invested in three ambitious Scottish research projects to help drive local economic growth, provide skills training, and create high-value jobs in Glasgow.
The UK government is investing in three ambitious Scottish research projects to help drive local economic growth, provide skills training, and create high-value jobs in Glasgow as well as Edinburgh and south-west Scotland.
Scottish projects receiving funding include HotScot, a project led by the University of Strathclyde to extract low cost, low carbon heat from old flooded mines in Glasgow.
Another project is the Centre for Regulated Bio-Manufacture, led by Heriot-Watt University, which aims to establish advanced therapies, biologics, and manufacturing clusters in the Lothian region.
And lastly, Digital Dairy Value-Chain which is led by Scotland’s Rural College. This project will combine digital communications with advanced manufacturing to help create a more modern, efficient, resilient dairy industry in south-west Scotland and Cumbria.
This announcement comes weeks after prime minister Boris Johnson kicked off his “Union Tour” in Orkney; Scotland’s “most unionist location” where nearly 70% of voters voted “No” to Scottish Independence in 2014.
Following a £91m government-funded consortium led by the University of Glasgow to translate new approaches in precision medicine into real-world settings, business secretary Alok Sharma said in a government statement: “We are backing our innovators and with the support they need to turn great ideas into first-class industries, products, and technologies.”
According to The Telegraph, senior SNP politicians accused Mr Johnson’s government of “posturing of the worst order” as it was revealed that these ambitious, new projects would be branded with the union jack flag in an attempt to boost support for unionism in Scotland.
These efforts to increase support for the union come at a time of growing support for Scottish Independence. The “Yes” vote took its biggest ever lead recently, with 53% of respondents in favour of independence according to a YouGov poll.
