Message from DHI CEO, Professor George Crooks
The global and local impact of the COVID-19 outbreak is monitored daily by our Senior Management Team to ensure that we follow the most up to date Government advice and recommendations and those of our host institution, the University of Strathclyde.
The next few weeks and months will be challenging for us all, as we come to terms with a new way of life and working remotely. It’s essential that we motivate and support each other as we strive to maintain business continuity for our staff and our partners so that we can all positively contribute to Scotland’s response to COVID-19.
As an organisation all staff are working remotely to protect their health, minimise the spread of the virus and maximise our contribution in support of front line services.
Actively practising social distancing (#StayAtHome to #FlattenTheCurve), avoiding direct hand contact with your eyes, nose and mouth and maintaining good hand hygiene are just some of the actions we all need to adopt and implement.
We have cancelled all face to face meetings and events until further notice, but our team are available and where possible, meetings will be done by teleconference or online using a number of different technology solutions.
As a national innovation centre and resource, that prides itself on transforming great ideas into real solutions, let me assure you that we are open for business and will continue to flex, adapt and keep our project partners supported during this difficult time. Professor George Crooks OBE
DHI Project portfolio
DHI have quickly reviewed and refocused our capabilities to create capacity to respond and assist to the COVID-19 challenges faced by our partners and citizens.
We’ve undertaken a rapid review of our current projects and released capacity within our team. We’ve reached out to the community to offer capability to find solutions to the ever pressing issues that come with this virus, bringing to bear the skills, knowledge and assets accumulated over the years at DHI and applying these to a new context, remotely and virtually, retaining a collaborative and person-centred approach.
Some of our planned project activities have been paused due to our partners’ understandable need to focus on urgent priorities, and the need for social distancing but we are working to amend our project plans where possible to keep momentum going.
We’re continuing to work on outputs and recommendations for a number of projects. Our team are liaising directly with the relevant organisational personnel to deliver these outputs.
New priority COVID-19 projects
The Scottish Government has identified the need for digital technology integration in the fight against COVID-19.
They’ve commissioned the DHI, to join the national response, and identify and develop potential digital innovations that would add value and provide much needed support to front line staff over the coming weeks and months.
We are developing several COVID-19 proposals for key areas, some of which involves re-purposing and modifying existing DHI innovations and others are rapid new developments. This is compressing our innovation model and realigning our capabilities to accelerate solutions which would allow our partners to realise innovation, adopt and scale to meet the demands in this crisis in the coming weeks.
Contacting DHI
Our Senior Management Team (SMT) are currently inundated with emails, while prioritising their immediate focus on supporting the effort to deal with COVID-19.
To alleviate some of this pressure and ensure that those contacting DHI are responded to in a orderly and timely fashion we request that:
- Any new enquiries for SMT colleagues
- Any potential digital product/ service offering details that may be of use
must be emailed to hello@dhi-scotland.com in the first instance. All emails will be monitored on a daily basis, prioritised and responded to appropriately.
Thank you for your support and understanding!
UK Government ventilator call
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is looking for organisations who can support in the supply of ventilators and ventilator components across the UK as part of the Government’s response to COVID-19. This includes things like sensors, actuators, components, valves, power supplies and more.
Latest COVID-19 updates
For the latest updates and advice on Corona Virus (COVID-19) go to:
