The Milk Round accelerator

Funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Strength in Places Fund, the Digital Dairy Value Chain project will create over 600 new jobs in south-west Scotland and Cumbria, and add £60 million to the annual output of the local economy. In doing so, the project will renew and decarbonise the area’s dairy industry, which every year produces 1.9 billion litres of milk.

Digital Dairy Value Chain is led by Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) with consortium partners including CENSIS. CENSIS will deliver an accelerator programme (the CENSIS Milk Round) as part of the project.

CENSIS will lead and deliver ‘the Milk Round’, a multi-year accelerator programme designed to help individuals and companies of any size in the region fast track ideas from proof of concept to demonstration and testing.

Accelerator winners receive a tailored six-month support package to deliver products, processes or services to help the consortium partners build their digital capability and meet net zero targets.

This is a competitive programme with intakes in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. Applications for the first first intake will open in autumn 2022.

To apply, companies or individuals must be based in an eligible postcode area within south-west Scotland or Cumbria.

The CENSIS Milk Round accelerator support package includes

• Up to 15 days of dedicated hands-on technical and engineering resource (valued at £10k incl. VAT) *
• Mentorship in all aspects of connected systems
• Carbon emissions impact estimate
• Access to user insights and requirements, specialist research facilities and expertise
• Introductions to partners to support you and grow your company
• Opportunity to pilot, trial and showcase your innovation with SIP partners
• Follow on investment advice to commercialise your product or service
• Financial support of up to £10K* (incl. VAT) to access third party services and products

* Terms and conditions will apply