The team beat off competition form 159 entries from other combined university and industry competitors to win the Best Application of Knowledge in this years Knowledge Transfer Partnership Awards.

Cranfield Colours Printing Inks product manager, Angela Brown, the Bristol University Associate attached to the independent ink manufacturer for two years, developed new testing methods to improve the quality of its inks.

Other joint areas of research included the development of a range of environmentally friendly inks and methods for ink testing that relate more closely to the printing process.

Her work led to a job offer to work permanently at the company.

Cranfield Colours Printing Inks managing director Michael Craine said that profits at the Cwmbran-based company were up and that the US, France, Holland and Australia had been opened up as export markets.

As a third-generation small business we needed to innovate and this programme has given us a business strategy that exceeded all expectations, said Craine.

The dean of the UWEs Faculty of Art Paul Gough said that the university had opened up new avenues for research.

In the course of the collaboration an all but forgotten printing process called collotype has been revived, which may enable digital printers to create reproduction of unrivalled accuracy and colour fidelity, said Gough.

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, which were formerly known as Teaching Company Schemes, are government-supported three-way links between universities, recent graduates and small and medium sized enterprises.

by John Davies