AS research-to-commercialisation support network Connect rolls out nationwide today, director Ian McDonald has set his sights on more than doubling investment into Scotland's small high-technology enterprises over the next three years.

The initiative, which has run as an Edinburgh-focused pilot scheme for the last 18 months, has helped bring in about #6m of early-stage technology funding since its inception.

McDonald hopes to raise that figure to some #25m for the next three years, with a more even spread across the country.

Connect will mark the launch of this national development plan by opening offices in Glasgow and Aberdeen. This will be paid for from a fund of nearly #1m which Connect raised from a variety of public, private and university sponsors.

Established in September 1996, Connect's raison d'etat is the creation and growth of technology enterprise throughout Scotland. As McDonald explains, the initiative delivers one of the projects called for in the Technology Ventures 10-year commercialisation strategy.

''One of our main objectives will be to get people from different parts of the country to talk to each other,'' he said. ''What is very important is the interaction among various areas.''

The opening of Connect's Glasgow office, to be housed at the University of Strathclyde, will be marked by an inaugural forum and reception to be held this evening in the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow. The keynote speaker is Roger Needham, the director of Microsoft Research and pro vice-chancellor at the University of Cambridge.

Of perhaps more interest to local entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and researchers will be Andrew McNair, one of three new regional directors charged with developing the network between academia and the business world.

McNair, who heads the West of Scotland division, will be joined by Callum Norrie in the east and an as-yet unnamed director for the north.

Although the majority of funds brought in so far by the initiative have originated from last year's Connect Investment Conference, the initiative can also help businesses fill relatively short-term funding gaps. Sums of up to #750,000 have been sourced in this way from business angels, venture capitalists and similar organisations.

The companies which have already benefited from Connect's activities include Voxar and Sirius Seven Software, both of Edinburgh. Voxar has developed affordable software which can handle three dimensional images in real time, while Sirius Seven has produced a desktop mapping analysis tool which transfers data into spatial information.

Both companies presented their case to technology backers at Connect's November investment conference, which is expected to ultimately raise up to #10m for the 22 businesses involved.

That event was held alongside the Technology Ventures Congress, which focused on the issues of finance and funding for university spin-out firms. The 10-year Technology Ventures strategy grew out of a 1995 commercialisation inquiry headed by Scottish Enterprise and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, which also indirectly led to the evolution of Connect.

This year's Connect Investment Conference will be held in October, at the international conference centre in Edinburgh.