Company owners are being invited to a day of face-to-face meetings with academics to discuss ways of minimising risks to their business.

A one-day event on risk and resilience will help firms prepare for dramatic events that may impact on their operations.

Edinburgh Research and Innovation, the commercialisation arm of the University of Edinburgh, is behind AIMday (Academic Industry Meeting day) which will tackle topics such as regulatory and technological change.

These could have repercussions for companies, their customers, employees and supply chains.

Companies can submit a question or commercial challenge around any aspect of risk and resilience.  Academics will select those questions where they believe their research could add the most value to the company discussion.

On the AIMday itself, the companies and academics meet in a one-hour workshop face to face to discuss possible pathways to a solution – the emphasis being on generating innovative ideas to meet today’s challenges using multi-disciplinary approach.

Douglas Graham, commercial relations executive, at Edinburgh Business School, said there is an increased emphasis on identifying and managing risk in industry.

“With companies increasingly looking to meet global market demands, universities are a vital source of knowledge on this topic,” he said.

“This AIMday event will provide a source of innovative and multi-disciplinary thinking to companies who are looking to protect their supply chains, investments and bottom line well into the future.

“It is important that organisations embed risk management strategies into their day-to-day operations. Supply chains are increasingly outsourced, therefore, companies need to understand, anticipate and plan for strategic resilience in order to safeguard their bottom line and competitive edge.”

The event will be held on 27 January at the University of Edinburgh Business School and will allow companies to access to expertise across the colleges of humanities & social science, medicine & veterinary medicine, and science & engineering.

Edinburgh University last year became the first higher academic institute outside Scandinavia to be approved as hosts for AIMday – a unique collaborative knowledge exchange initiative which began life at Uppsala University in Sweden.

This is the sixth AIMday to be organised by Edinburgh Research and Innovation (ERI).

Companies can register and submit their questions or challenges until 30 October, at which point academics will be able to select those questions their research is most closely aligned to.

Interested companies can find out more at
http://aimday.se/risk-resilience-edinburgh-2016/