Faculty of Science, Engineering and Computing wins its first Knowledge Transfer Partnership

27/09/2011

Faculty of Science, Engineering and Computing wins its first Knowledge Transfer Partnership

The Faculty of Science, Engineering and Computing (SEC) has been awarded a two-year Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) worth nearly £120,000, with Kent-based security company Selectamark.

Selectamark offers a complete portfolio of crime reduction solutions both in the UK and overseas. Products include visible property marking kits, advanced DNA forensic marking systems and asset tracking.

The company also operates BikeRegister, the UK's leading online registration initiative aiming to reduce bicycle theft and assist in owner recovery.
The KTP – the first for the SEC faculty – aims to create an IT strategy and infrastructure for the company, to provide a better service to users, improve data management and security and, ultimately, to help position the company as the international leader in the sector.

Dr James Denholm-Price of the School of Mathematics, who is working with Selectamark, said: "This KTP has the potential to make a significant contribution to the future of Selectamark, which is a great company with a really interesting product range. We are fortunate to have a first-class Kingston graduate this year whose skills and personality have quickly knitted him into the company. For the Faculty and myself, this is an opportunity to combine mathematical and computer science expertise into a project with real return on investment potential, and to make links with a commercial sector that complements our computing and cyber security provision."

The KTP follows two successful smaller collaborations with the company; in 2010, Professor Jonathan Briggs of the School of Computing and Information Systems and Lukas Kunduris, a Kingston media technology and internet computing graduate, worked with Selectamark on a six-week project to improve the usability of bikeregister.com through an Innovation Associates Programme.

And this year, Selectamark was awarded an Enterprise Support Innovation Voucher to purchase services from the University to further develop bikeregister.com. With support from James, media technology and web development graduate Joe Dixon designed, developed and carried out the modifications. Following this work, the company won a tender to provide the official cycle database and bike-marking product for London. BikeRegister is now endorsed by the Metropolitan Police Service and is being used by their Cycle Task Force.

The two projects highlighted to Selectamark the need for in-house IT expertise. Now, James and Joe are working with Selectamark again, along with Mary Thomson from the School of Computing and Information Systems, as lead academic on the project.

Andrew Knights, Managing Director of Selectamark, said: "In these competitive and challenging times, we recognised that we needed to make a significant investment in IT in order to maintain our market-leading position. We are pleased that this has been made possible by partnering with Kingston in a KTP. This will allow Selectamark to develop and create an IT resource that is not only unique but will help us to increase our international standing."