Case Studies

University of Glasgow Students Test CubeSat for Coastline Monitoring at the Higgs Centre for Innovation

Tue 16 Jun 2026

OirthirSAT is a student satellite team from the University of Glasgow developing a CubeSat to support improved monitoring of UK coastlines and coastal erosion. The project was awarded £600,000 through the UK Space Agency’s LaunchUK Nanosat Design Competition in 2022…

Robocean Innovation for Environmental Sustainability: The Case of Seagrass Restoration Re-imagined

Mon 08 Jun 2026

Robocean, a robotics start-up, is an organisation of engineers dedicated to streamlining  marine ecosystem restoration, with a particular focus on seagrass recovery and a vision of seagrass restoration re-imagined. Challenge Seagrass ecosystems are globally distributed, and the process involved in…

Turning Light into Insight: Singular Photonics Accelerates Innovation with STFC Support

Wed 25 Feb 2026

Singular Photonics develops cutting-edge Single-Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) sensors with integrated on-chip computation, enabling ultra-fast, high-precision imaging and measurement. Through collaboration with STFC and participation in the Higgs Business Incubation Centre (Higgs BIC), part of the DeepTech Catalyst, the company…

Aurora Avionics: The Scottish Space Start-Up Accelerating Launch Timelines by Building the ‘Nervous Systems’ of Rockets

Wed 04 Feb 2026

Aurora Avionics are a Scottish space start-up, developing next-generation, modular avionics for launch providers. Avionics are electronic systems that act as the 'nervous system’ of a rocket, enabling navigation, communication, monitoring and diagnostics. Avionics operate by being connected to all…

Metacarpal: The first bionic hand – solely powered and controlled through body motion

Mon 12 Jan 2026

Metacarpal make fully body-powered yet bionic, prosthetic hands with zero electronics. The functionality of the prosthetics is fully generated by the user, giving the most intuitive and practical operation.   Challenge   While foot and leg prosthetics have been incredibly successful at…

Omanos Analytics: Unveiling Community Impacts of Conflict and Climate

Tue 01 Apr 2025

Omanos Analytics are a Glasgow-based space technology start-up delivering space data knowledge to support sustainable development, with a mission to use space data to improve transparency and reduce risk around the social and environmental impacts of critical infrastructure projects. With…

STFC supports UK business in ensuring their technology is NASA compliant

Thu 10 Aug 2023

Facilities and expertise at the Higgs Centre for Innovation are used by Scottish company Alpha Data to rigorously test their electronic boards. Challenge Alpha Data offers a range of cutting-edge electronics and electronic boards that can provide solutions to space-related…

Science and business co-location leads to revolutionary technology to improve Earth observation

Thu 25 Aug 2022

Collaboration between Razorbill Instruments and STFC’s UK Astronomy Technology Centre could deliver crisp images of the Earth through nanosatellites – small satellites that are about the size of a toaster. Challenge Nanosatellites are disrupting earth observation in positive ways; their…

Game-changing agri-tech developed at the ESA BIC UK

Tue 19 Apr 2022

Scottish start-up Crover has developed world-first agricultural technology designed to reduce waste and save millions of tonnes of grain stock each year. The Challenge Every year around 630 million tonnes of grain is lost globally. When grains such as wheat…