Faraday Plastics, the Government-sponsored body for UK plastics R&D, has launched an affiliate membership scheme that is designed to bring its innovative work to more and more companies and academic partners.

Small to medium sized [SME] companies will be charged just £500 a year for the benefits of Faraday Plastics membership. These include research bid preparations on a no win/no fee basis; a company research review and an alerting service, as well as priority booking for all of Faraday Plastics events and plastics research issues

Large company industry affiliates receive services to match a sponsorship of £5000. This allows the company to play a creative role in defining the strategy and direction of the Faraday Plastics collaborative research projects.

Most sponsors are also directly involved as contributing participants in the research programmes can provide the focus for regional technology transfer meetings and influence the participation of SMEs through their supply chains.

Sponsorship also includes a free and annual technology road mapping exercise; free funding alerts; free events and network membership.

“We know that UK manufacturers are continually searching out the innovations that the plastics sector offers,” says Faraday Plastics director Richard Simpson.

“And these new categories of Faraday membership bring that innovation right to their doorstep and help them with its development. Our affiliate packages have also been very carefully designed to give companies very good value for money.”

The Faraday Plastics board has also secured the help of British Plastics Federation director general Peter Davis.

Faraday staffing also sees changes with the appointment of Carole Kovacs of Rapra Technology as assistant to Faraday Plastics director, Richard Simpson, who is also based at Rapra Technology.