The IDEAS programme aimed at improving and maintaining economic performance of participating businesses by delivering new and specifically tailored knowledge to 40 high-tech SMEs situated at Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus and its wider network of companies in the region and incite the exchange of knowledge between companies.

This was achieved through a close collaboration and sharing of expertise between three leading universities in the North of the UK: Lancaster, Liverpool, Manchester business and management schools and ImaginationLancaster, the creative research and design lab at Lancaster University.

While the whole programme comprised three series of workshops, the last workshop series, Beyond Networking, consisted of five workshops that were centred around topics related to the innovation process like effective network management and creative methods to improve invention capabilities.

As part of the IDEAS programme for business engagement, during the Beyond Networking workshop series, innovative methods and mechanisms for knowledge exchange were explored, developed and implemented.