Provision of Design Team Services for SRUC’s Dairy Nexus

Description

Dairy Nexus will provide a flagship facility that re-positions the Borderlands at the forefront of industry-focused, rural co-innovation and knowledge exchange. It will drive transformational research and innovation to decarbonise the dairy sector and move it towards a circular bioeconomy. In doing so, Dairy Nexus will deliver significant and inclusive regional growth to underpin the rural communities that are so important to the Borderlands economy and its regional identity. Dairy Nexus will comprise: - Co-innovation Hub with modern Knowledge Exchange facilities (linked electronically to other sites in the region) and co-working spaces - “UK-first” Digital Twin of a dairy farm that will use cutting edge digital technologies to decarbonise forage-based dairy farming, safeguard animal health and wellbeing, accelerate productivity growth and optimise milk composition for the downstream dairy processing sector - Modern biorefinery facilities for R&D around biorefining of manure, grass and milk, creating new value streams for dairy farming - Modern milk technology laboratories for R&D aimed at maximising value and reducing energy consumption and waste in on-farm milk handling and storage. By supporting a key sector in the Borderlands region, Dairy Nexus will bring additional inward investment and R&D spend to the region leading to the creation of new high-value jobs, improved productivity, increased environmental benefits and more prosperity and resilience to the region’s rural communities. Located at SRUC’s Barony Campus, Dairy Nexus is ideally positioned to service the region’s two main centres of dairy production in Cumbria and Dumfries & Galloway. It will ensure the Borderlands is the go-to place for dairying co-innovation in a modern bioeconomy with its enabling AgriTech and BioTech industries. The Dairy Nexus Co-innovation Hub is a new building (zero carbon construction) placed at the entrance to the Dairy Nexus site which will provide modern and flexible meeting spaces together with state-of-the-art IT facilities for virtual conferencing. The Hub is the entry point through which individual businesses can access the many other capabilities of Dairy Nexus (e.g. access to dairy farms to evaluate new environmental sensing technology, or space in the biorefinery to develop new products from biomass). The Hub also provides space for dairy stakeholders to initiate and develop their own innovation projects. Importantly, the Hub also provides a point of engagement with the wider community of the Borderlands region, facilitating visits by schools and other community groups and providing a platform for communication on all things dairy to wider society.