The TWI Innovation Network (TWIIN) was officially launched in 2018 to bring together the innovation initiatives and activities of TWI, and its industry and academic partners, in the preceding nine years.
The first academia-industrial partnership established by TWI under what was to become TWIIN, was with Brunel University London and led to the creation of the Brunel Innovation Centre in 2009.
The National Structural Integrity Research Centre (NSIRC) was founded next, in 2012, with partners BP and Lloyd’s Register Foundation. NSIRC marries academic research by leading universities with industrial experience at TWI to deliver new PhDs, MScs and MBAs.
Subsequent years saw the introduction of two international partner programmes focused on facilitating innovative R&D to generate new technologies, systems, products and services: the Private Technology Innovation Partnerships (PTIPs) model, designed for major international companies and organisations, and the Technology Acceleration Programmes (TAPs) model for small to medium sized enterprises (SMES).
Underpinning the various schemes are three core TWIIN services: Technology Innovation Management, which works with SMEs, research and technology organisations (RTOs), TWI Industrial Members and TWI’s technical experts to unlock public funding for collaborative projects to deliver next-generation technologies; Innovation Consultancy which works with individual companies and organisations to unlock their full R&D and technological potential; and the TWIIN Subscription, introduced in 2020, which provides subscribing companies with one-to-one commercial development support and tailored networking opportunities.
TWIIN also runs an extensive annual agenda of events, webinars and workshops designed to encourage international collaboration, innovation and networking.