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Lancaster Team wins Environment Competition

Story supplied by LU Press Office

L - R: Alasdair Monteith, Stephanie Sdepanian, Apostolos Papadopoulos and Neil Mullinger L - R: Alasdair Monteith, Stephanie Sdepanian, Apostolos Papadopoulos and Neil Mullinger

A team of young researchers from Lancaster University and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology have won a national competition for environmental entrepreneurs.

The Environment YES (Young Entrepreneurs Scheme) - sponsored by the Natural Environment Research Council - is an innovative way of raising commercial awareness among postgraduate students and postdoctoral scientists.

Teams are allowed to assume a technical breakthrough in an environmentally related technology, so they have some intellectual property (e.g. a patent), with which they can then plan a new business. However, the rest of the business plan must be based on reality, which means real market research and real costs. The team must then pitch their theoretical business plan to a group of 'investors' to raise the necessary finance to start up their business.

This year's team undertook three days of intensive training in Oxford. During this they presented a business plan based on a novel conductive polymer, enabling high efficiency low cost solar cells to be produced for home electricity generation.

The team was presented with a cash prize and a trophy following the final of Environment YES's sister competition, Biotechnology YES in London on 3rd December.

Team member Stephanie Sdepanian said: "The competition has been a great opportunity to further understand the possible applications of environmental research within the business sector and the means by which resulting technologies can be used to benefit the wider public. It has been a steep, exciting and highly informative learning curve, that we would not have had the chance to experience otherwise."

Thu 13 December 2007

Associated Links

  • Environment YES - NERC's Environment YES (Young Entrepreneurs Scheme) is designed to help increase the level of entrepreneurial awareness in the environmental sciences
  • Lancaster Environment Centre - Innovation, training and research for a sustainable future