Moray Growth Deal funding supports new innovation centre
News of the official launch of the Moray Rural Centre of Excellence for Digital Health and Care Innovation
Last updated 10th Jun 2022
The launch of the Moray Rural Centre of Excellence for Digital Health and Care Innovation was marked today with an official visit from UK and Scottish Government representatives. Iain Stewart MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Scotland and Richard Lochhead MSP, attended the launch which took place at The Glasgow School of Art’s Highlands and Islands campus.
The launch of the Moray Rural Centre of Excellence for Digital Health and Care Innovation was marked today. On their visit Iain Stewart MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Scotland and local MSP Richard Lochhead were able to see first-hand some of world-leading research in the key area of digital health.
They were able learn more about future innovations particularly in the area of co-design, which are being made possible through major investment from the Moray Growth Deal. Among the projects that were showcased were SCOTCAP a video capsule endoscopy developed to replace or complement existing colonoscopy services.
UK Government Minister for Scotland Iain Stewart said: “Digital innovation in healthcare has huge potential for improving the quality, accuracy, timeliness and cost of diagnosis and treatments in our NHS.
"This will have a particularly positive impact for Moray's communities, who will benefit greatly from advancements in remote medicine.
"The UK Government is investing £5m in this exciting initiative that will put the region at the forefront of new technologies and practices and is part of the £2 billion we are putting into projects levelling up across Scotland."
The £5 million project, a UK Government investment, aims to support the remobilisation of health and care services and the economic recovery of the Moray region through investment in research and innovation activities aligned to the digital health and care agenda. It is the first Moray Growth Deal project to commence.
“...an exciting development that will boost Moray’s profile as a centre of digital healthcare and innovation..." - Richard Lochhead
Richard Lochhead, MSP, said: “This is an exciting development that will boost Moray’s profile as a centre of digital healthcare and innovation with some of Scotland’s leading institutions coming together to make it happen. For many years Moray has been spoken about as an ideal location for testing digital healthcare innovation given that we have all sizes of populations as well as being largely rural at the same time. I hope that local residents are amongst the first to benefit from such innovations.”
The Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre, a world-leading collaboration between The Glasgow School of Art and the University of Strathclyde, will be spearheading the development and delivery of the projects alongside key strategic partners.
The Moray Rural Centre of Excellence for Digital Health and Care Innovation will house a state-of-the-art, demonstration and simulation environment (DSE) and an enabling cloud infrastructure. There will also be a spread of five co-designed “Living Lab” testbeds across the Moray region.