LCR4.0 Holistic supports over 50% more start-ups as a catalyst for Business Growth and Innovation

Since launching in the summer of 2020, LCR4.0 Holistic has been making great strides in supporting numerous businesses and SMEs across the Liverpool City Region in creating and developing advanced digital supply chains across multiple sectors for increasing innovative collaborations, greater resilience to market changes and aiding growth opportunities through diversification in the face of challenges including COVID-19 and BREXIT.

Building on the success and legacy of the predecessor LCR4.0, LCR4.0 Holistic aims to bring companies and businesses together, breaking down sector barriers for a more inclusive and engaging supply chain and taking advantage of cross-over skills and capabilities to strengthen the economic environment.

The project promises to improve connectivity across networks, support business growth through intensive assistance and business recommendations, and leverage enhanced data analytics and strategy developments from proof of concepts through to implementation.

To date, the LCR4.0 Holistic teams have supported over 116 businesses including 20 start-ups, which is over 50% more than initially targeted. Creating more than 77 collaborative projects, the teams have helped to support businesses in developing their digital strategy and bringing 33 new products to market and another 61 new products to firm, showcasing real innovation internally and externally.

The project team has worked across a wide range of sectors such as healthcare, maritime, the creative arts and presented the UK’s first Digital Heritage Symposium that saw several SMEs and local businesses come together with combined authority figures and trustee members to discuss the benefits of Industry 4.0 technologies for the preservation and promotion of heritage sites and assets across the region, developing tourism and creating new revenues for profits.

LCR4.0 Holistic has supported businesses to access 3D printing facilities to develop more environmentally friendly products, reduce waste, and achieve Net Carbon Zero goals. Additional SMEs have explored app development projects, added QR codes to products for faster auditing, and even remotely entered the Metaverse for immersive events in real time.

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This data was taken in May 2023.

LCR4.0 Holistic will be ending in the summer of 2023 as the teams urge businesses to contact the team to access fully-funded support as it remains available. LCR4.0 Holistic is a collaborative ERDF-funded project (European Regional Development Fund) between the University of Liverpool’s Virtual Engineering Centre and Management School, Liverpool John Moores University, and the Liverpool City Region Growth Platform. 

More information can be found here along with several case studies from the project.