Lincolnshire Open Research and Innovation Centre (LORIC) is a department within Lincoln Bishop University. It was established in 2017 and was part-funded until June 2019 by the European Regional Development Fund.
As part of the initial funded programme, LORIC worked with 39 small and medium-sized enterprises in Greater Lincolnshire. From June 2019 to February 2021 the department delivered a number of commercial contracts to a variety of organisations and undertook a number of projects funded by Research England.
In 2021, Lincoln Bishop was awarded a second round of ERDF funding to reprise the research and business support offer to local SMEs, named the LORIC 2.0 Project, while at the same time working on a range of other externally funded projects. As part of the LORIC 2.0 Project, LORIC has supported, to date, 126 Greater Lincolnshire SMEs with advice, research, and data analysis which has helped them to engage in research and development within their businesses.
In 2023, the LORIC team were awarded two UK Shared Prosperity Fund contracts to deliver fully funded business support to eligible businesses in Greater Lincolnshire.
Since 2025, LORIC has delivered the Business Lincolnshire contract for the Social Economy Academy. Find out more about this programme and the fully funded support available for Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise organisations here: Social Economy Support | Help for Charities, CICs & Social Enterprises in Lincolnshire.
In addition, LORIC continues to offer commercial research services, specialising in supporting public sector and VCFSE sector projects.
LORIC can help your organisation to:
• Access and use data and research to help you make insightful decisions
• Design new business or project strategies based on insight
• Identify gaps in the market through research
• Develop new products and new business models
• Provide evidence to support investment and innovation.