Bradford University's relationship with the business community is set to receive a major boost thanks to £2.4 million in Government funding.

Efforts to ensure university research is used to benefit local firms plus the creation of more start-up businesses by graduates will be helped by the award of the funding through the Higher Education Innovation Fund.

Bradford received a big share of the £18 million handed out to Yorkshire universities. And its growing links with the business community have been singled out as a major factor in its success.

Today Bradford University's head of business services and regional development, Ian Rowe, described the award as a major boost.

The money will help strengthen the existing links with business through the recently-opened Institute of Pharmaceutical Innovation, which is leading the world in efforts to quicken the time it takes to get drugs to market.

Mr Rowe said the university wanted to build on such examples of making its research relevant to industry.

It will also be increasing efforts to ensure that specialist technology at the university is made available to local businesses which could benefit. That is likely to centre on the existing Centre of Industrial Collaboration in polymers which links up with Yorkshire-based plastics companies.

The money will also help strengthen the university's graduate start-up business programme which aims to generate around five or six new businesses founded by students each term.

A further £750,000 will be earmarked for community-driven activities centring on education and cohesion.

"We are absolutely delighted with the grant," said Mr Rowe. "It really backs up the strategic direction that this university is taking which is very much about working with local communities. If you look across the set of universities that have benefited from this money, Bradford has done at least as well as the others. We are right up there at the top of the sector.

"We think this Government support is backing for the strategic direction we have taken which marks us out from other universities, such as Leeds, which are more focused on a research-driven agenda."

Bradford also teamed up with other Yorkshire universities for three collaborative bids looking at specific issues such as the digital sector and the creation of a centre for graduate enterprise.

Science and Innovation Minister Lord Sainsbury, who opened Bradford's IPI last year when he praised the university's links with commerce, said the funding was a key part of the Government's agenda.