Sheffield printer Evolution, Leeds screen and digital printer RPS2000 and North Yorkshire designer and publisher Colour Heroes have been working alongside Cambridge-based interactive printed media company Novalia to produce a commercially viable product containing printed electronic elements.

Final printed trials are being carried out in the next two weeks after which a commercially orientated product will be manufactured.

Kate Stone, managing director at Novalia, said: "We don't want to go shouting about something if we haven't got a product to show. But we have now shown that printed electronics can be manufactured. We are in the process of putting a skin on it and that will become our demonstrator, which should be available in the next six weeks.

"After that, we can put a price on the product. We want potential users to look at the product and say 'we can see how that will benefit us'."

The consortium successfully bid for funding from The Northern Way – an umbrella body set up by the three northern Regional Development Agencies – in a process administered by Printable Electronics Technology Centre in Sedgefield, County Durham.

Print Yorkshire manager Mike Hopkins said that the consortium was successful because it included SME commercial printers. "They are the cornerstone of the printing industry and most likely to achieve the maximum adoption of the technologies," he said.

Novalia's Chris Jones added that the most technically challenging aspect of the project had been to find suitable litho inks. He said: "Even with my ink experience, I have been left scratching my head sometimes."