NEWCASTLE Science City is looking into ways to secure fresh funding through both public and private channels after its main backer One North East shuts next year.
It is investigating options which include extra public funding to support its community activities such as business support and networking event First Friday, and using its Innovation Machine business creation scheme to attract private cash.
Science City chief executive Peter Arnold said: “These are uncertain times, but I think we’ve come to a point recently where we know we’ve got until March next year and the board is encouraging me to think about what we do beyond that. We’ve got a lot of ideas.
“We’re looking at two activities in particular. We do some public work such as First Fridays and business support and have big engagement projects with education and skills in the community.
“We’re looking to see if we can attract additional public sector money for that by March 2012. We’re also identifying private sector activity, largely around the Innovation Machine. We’re looking at how we might commercialise that in several ways.”
Science City has been running its First Friday events in Newcastle since the summer of 2009. They allow entrepreneurs to meet at the Central Bean coffee house to trade advice and possibly collaborate on business ideas.
It hopes to expand its reach by organising the events in other parts of the region. The first will be at Morpeth on February 11 when it will run from 8.30am to 10am at the Sanderson Centre.
Arnold said: “We were asked to do the event by a number of people. A lot of businesses out in Morpeth have experience of the Newcastle event, but it is an opportunity to talk to people who wouldn’t normally have to come to Newcastle to get that sort of support. We hope to get a new mix and a new range of businesses out of it.
“We definitely intend to hold a First Friday event in Sunderland with Sunderland University in the future. It’s still our plan to encourage the entrepreneurial community to pick up the event at some point, but it’s our intention at the moment to keep running it.
“I think these events will evolve and develop their own dynamics. What we’ve been trying to do in Newcastle is to get more venture capital and angel investors coming.
“Our intention is to make sure there are these vibrant pockets of activity across the region, so that you won’t need to formally contract someone to give you advice, but know instead there’s an event every month you can go to and meet someone who will help you.”