NEW developments totalling £20m are set to put Huddersfield University – and the town – at the cutting edge of technology.

The university has secured funding for two major schemes which aim to generate scores of jobs and boost the regional economy.

The project will enable innovative firms to forge closer links with the research expertise and technical facilities available at the Queensgate campus.

European Development Fund cash, secured via regional development agency Yorkshire Forward, will meet more than half the cost of a new £12m Enterprise and Innovation Centre (EIC) at the university.

The university is pumping £3.8m itself into the project while Kirklees Council is contributing £1.3m to the EIC, which will open for business in May, 2012.

Meanwhile, the university’s Centre for Precision Technologies – providing expertise in surface metrology, machine tool accuracy and diagnostic engineering – has secured £8m to create a Centre for Innovative Manufacture (CIM) that will enable manufacturing firms to fit their existing machine tools with devices that ensure almost total accuracy.

The Enterprise and Innovation Centre is the brainchild of Dr Liz Towns-Andrews, director of research and enterprise at the university, who said: “This is fantastic news, not only for the university but the region as a whole.

“The EIC will be a completely new model for the way that universities work with business.”