Collaboration between businesses in industry

Collaborating with like-minded companies enables businesses to survive, share knowledge, compete, and overcome obstacles in landing big contracts, developing new products and entering new markets.  

Yorkshire Forward offers two programmes designed to bring companies together for greater mutual success: 

Strategic sector champions

Yorkshire Forward directly employs a team of ‘strategic sector champions’. These are experienced industrialists who identify opportunities for innovation through collaboration, and broker relationships between businesses and the science base. There are currently five strategic sector champions, covering the following sectors.  

For more information, click on any of the sectors to email the specialists direct:

Virtual Enterprise Networks

The Virtual Enterprise Networks (VENs), jointly funded by Yorkshire Forward and the EU, revolutionise the way SMEs compete for major contracts—by allowing them to negotiate and trade as a single entity. The VENs also provide access to the huge expertise of the region's research institutes and higher education institutes.

Members are assessed on the nature and capacity of their core competencies, creditworthiness and capacity to collaborate with others. The VENs work in partnership with member organisations across many product and service market sectors to identify their core competencies, and are then able to match member organisations to opportunities. The region's six VENs take the supply-chain process to a new level, by carefully selecting member companies and integrating them into a ready-made supply-chain network.

The networks are characterised by genuine co-operation and enforced with clear ground rules about obligations and rewards.

Each VEN consists of 200+ companies, joined by universities and research institutes. The first six networks cover:

  • Manufacturing
  • Digital industries
  • Healthcare and bioscience
  • Food and drink
  • Chemicals
  • Construction.

For more information, visit the VEN website.

Further targeted support

  • Support for the chemicals sector is available through innovation investment and network support activities
  • Support for the financial and professional services sector is available through the Financial Services Academy.

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