Building an innovation platform for the Catapult Network
Providing UK enterprises with easy access to world-class research
Overview
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Challenge
Catapults are the UK's physical centres for innovation that help turn great ideas into reality and provide businesses in the UK with easy access to world-class research and development facilities which would otherwise be out of reach. The government is investing 100's of millions of pounds in setting up and supporting the Catapult Network.
Catapults identify, adapt and exploit innovative technologies, helping to transform ideas into commercial products and services. They are physical centres, offering research and development facilities to businesses within relevant fields of technology in the UK. At present the Catapult centres have no shared online platform, they approached WORTH to:
Create a shared online platform for the different Catapult centres
Provide an online platform that can easily integrate with other online tools
Deliver a solution that would comply with the UK government's Digital Service (GDS) standards
build a solution that would scale with the Catapult organisations rapid expansion
“WORTH has been working really hard over the past couple of months preparing the demos and the final sites, applying all the site maps, etc. sent for the workshops. They have worked some very long hours to make sure everything has been ready and I have very much appreciated their dedication to this project.”
Tamsin Jones, Project Manager, Catapult Network
The approach
A seamless user experience
As a public facing digital service a seamless user experience was key. We built one portal providing the infrastructure for all the sites, making it easy for users to cross navigate multiple Catapult sites, and one login option to provide a seamless user experience.
Enabling future growth and using the right technology
The solution was clustered to provide scalability based on predicted future activity of an active national innovation network, and the site was built using Liferay, the leading open source enterprise portal solution.
Results
Improving site infrastructure
Content and structure consistency to enhance cross navigation of Catapult sites.
Enhancing user experience
A single login option enables access for all Catapult users.
Increasing scalability and relevance
Setting the stage for the further development of an active national innovation network.