The University of Salford is leading an academic-industry partnership to exploit Virtual Environment (VE) research. The project has won Pounds 1.7million from the Higher Education Funding Council for England - the largest single grant in the current round of university bids. The project will explore the use of collaborative virtual environments in the automotive, defence, aerospace, construction and medical fields. More than Pounds 2 million is being "match-funded" by firms such as Silicon Graphics and Trimension Systems.