Eleven business innovation projects from around the Highlands and Islands have been short-listed in a major competition, set up to benefit small to medium sized enterprises and research groups in the area.

The Research Challenge Fund was established by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and the 11 finalists have been selected from a list of 38 applicants who each submitted entries in June. The remaining applicants will now submit more detailed proposals for their projects in September and from these, three winners will be selected to share in a cash prize of £150,000 to help turn their projects into reality.

Among those still in the running are four research project proposals from Argyll, one from Orkney, one from Lewis, one from Ross-shire, one from Skye, and three from Inverness.

The competition is focussed on early stage research and development work and is primarily intended to help convert these early ideas into well-formed product or process concepts, and to help them reach their full potential.

HIE's innovation unit manager Ruaraidh MacNeil said : "Throughout Scotland a key priority is getting research ideas 'out of the labs and into the businesses' and that's exactly what this challenge fund is all about. The first round of this challenge has demonstrated quite clearly that companies and research organisations in the Highlands and Islands have some excellent ideas with real potential.  The aim of the challenge is help overcome the fact that all too often these ideas take too long to exploit or get overtaken by events. We are working to encourage innovation in all its forms - and then to see them commercially exploited within this area for the benefit of our economy and workforce.

"The Fund will enable the applicants with the three most impressive ideas to take them forward and make them a reality. But the best bit is there will be no losers, as even those who don't receive one of the final awards will still benefit from the Challenge Fund process and they may well be eligible for support under HIE's other innovation development programmes."

The winners of the Research Challenge Fund will be announced at end of November.