Wed, 20 March, 2024
The TWI online networking and collaboration platform, Orbit has been updated with new features to improve the user experience.
Having launched in 2023, Orbit provides users easy access to the details of more than 100 European Union (EU) and UK grant funding competitions (or ‘calls’) that are looking for competitive project proposals from technology-based consortia to solve.
These proposals enable industry-focused research and development (R&D) opportunities alongside TWI Innovation Centres, Industrial Member companies, Innovation Network Subscriber companies, and SMEs with complementary skills and experience to your own.
To improve the user experience and offer more benefits, the Orbit platform has undergone a number of improvements:
- Orbit Funding Opportunities page
This area allows users to search for upcoming opportunities, with funding calls published in date order and including details of the funding topic, competition scope and aims, maximum project value, and the deadline to express your interest.
This area now offers a list of similar funding opportunities on the funding call pages, allowing you to investigate and compare alternative options.
- Orbit Discussions page
The discussions page is now a more information-rich forum that allows users to ask questions and share comments, allowing you to engage with others who are interested in similar grant funding competitions.
The new ‘Expertise Offer’ and ‘Expertise Request’ buttons allow you to highlight particular technologies and industries, while the new PDF document upload facility means you can now provide other forum users with more detailed information as required.
- Orbit About Us page
The About Us page has been updated with a glossary so you can check the terms and acronyms used by funding bodies and like Innovate UK and Horizon Europe as well as the acronyms used on the Orbit site itself.
- Past Events
We have added a ‘past events’ area, so you can check for any events that you may have missed but would be interested in getting information from, so you reach out to us for related information or a recording of the event itself (where available).
- Functionality Updates
We have also made a number of functionality updates – increasing the size of ‘action buttons’ and adding a ‘Member type’ drop-down menu to the Network area, so you can search for listed companies and organisations on Orbit by different categories. We have also improved the terminology and use of acronyms across the site.
Increased access for TWI Industrial Member and TWI Innovation Network Subscriber companies
As well as all of these updates, the number of registered user accounts per company / organisation has increased from three to five, meaning that more of your colleagues can access the project opportunities and work on joint activities in the same space.
Speaking on these latest updates and innovations, Senior Innovation Project Leader, Jacinthe Nourrit, who manages the Orbit platform said, “Since Orbit launched last year it has gone from strength-to-strength – and we now have users spread across the UK, 21 different European countries and further afield in regions including America, Asia and Africa – who collectively represent a mix of TWI Innovation Centres, leading universities, TWI Industrial Members, TWI Innovation Network Subscribers, and R&D-orientated SMEs. We are also rigorous in our commitment to publishing the latest funding calls information in a single point of access. Therefore, if you are seeking a way to accelerate your technology innovation, creating a user profile on Orbit is a great starting point!”
Head over to Orbit to find out more and start exploring new funding opportunities today!