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Win for young entrepreneurs

9 December 2011

After an intense day of competition in London, a team of four budding environmental research entrepreneurs from the University of East Anglia have emerged as the winners of this year's Environment Young Entrepreneurs Scheme (YES).

The winners are Christopher Applegate, Cansu Bayindirli, Luke Davis and Rachel Hipkin.

The team pitched their plan for a hypothetical business called ReNeVention Ltd to a panel of investors. The panel were highly impressed by their idea for developing a new technology to efficiently harness and convert wasted thermal energy into electricity.

The winning team from the University of East Anglia

Minister for Universities & Science David Willetts said "I would like to congratulate the winners of the Biotechnology and Environment YES competitions on their success. Scientists who are able to combine their expertise with an understanding of business are a very precious resource. By learning how to translate research into wider successes, they can help ensure their work delivers the maximum benefits to society and the economy.

"I am impressed that the participants are taking the opportunity to develop their skills and knowledge at this early stage of their careers - it suggests a bright future for the commercialisation of UK research."

Runners-up in this year's competition were Vortech Forecasting from the Universities of Cambridge, East Anglia, Oxford and Liverpool, and AGC Technologies from the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University.

Environment YES is an annual business plan competition designed to raise awareness of commercialisation amongst postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers working in the environmental sciences. The teams prepare a business plan for an imaginary company, generally based on hypothetical (but plausible) science. The team members assume the roles of directors of their company and seek funding for their business plan from a group of equity investors.

Environment YES was developed and is delivered by a partnership between the University of Nottingham, Institute of Enterprise & Innovation (UNIEI) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

This is the sixth year that Environment YES has been run in parallel with Biotechnology YES, run by the Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council.

The winners of the 2011 Biotechnology YES competition are Ben Owens, Hannah Richards, Bonnie Murphy and Phillip Wulff from the University of Oxford, who pitched their plan for a hypothetical business called Metachem Solutions. Their idea was using yeast to produce high value fragrance components.

Further information

NERC Press Office
Natural Environment Research Council
Polaris House, North Star Avenue
Swindon, SN2 1EU
Tel: 01793 411561
Mob: 07917 557215

Press release: 31/11

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