Universities South West Enterprise Awards

8 students and 4 staff/alumni competed for the two 2010 awards. Learn more about their businesses here.

The awards were held on Tuesday 16 November in Plymouth and there was double success for the RAC.

There was also an additional award this year - the Ivita Social Enterprise Award.

Many of the Universities and Higher Education Colleges in the South West each hold annual business plan competitions involving staff, students and alumni.

As part of the Knowledge Escalator South West programme, a region-wide inter-university business plan competition is being held to showcase innovation and enterprise activity within the HEIs, building on experience of the 'Winner of Winners' and subsequent Knowledge West Enterprise Awards competitions that ran in the northern part of the region in earlier years.

The Universities SW Enterprise Awards (USWEA) set out to recognise and reward the breadth of the role of the Higher Education Institutes (HEI) in terms of encouraging knowledge exchange and business collaboration, and engendering a culture of enterprise in its students, staff and alumni. The awards offer significant cash prizes and regional exposure for the winning businesses.

The 2010 results were as follows:

Best Student Business Plan

Winner (£5k)
Vermtek - Charlie Hancock of the Royal Agricultural College

Runner up (£2.5k)
BOO Enterprise - Becky Barber from Plymouth University

Additional award - 'Ivita Social Enterprise Award' (£1k)
Musica - Rosanna Campbell of Bath Spa University

Best Staff / Alumni Business plan

Winner (£5k)
Cotswold Gold Ltd - Charlie Beldam and Lawrence Millett-Satow of the RAC

Runner Up (£2.5k)
Core & Grove - Jason Malone from the University of Bath

So it was clean sweep for the RAC this year.

Further information:

Contact:

Tel: +44 (0)117 32 82763
E-mail: iwona.tempowski@uwe.ac.uk

Universities SW Enterprise Awards
c/o Iwona Tempowski
Research, Business & Innovation
University of the West of England
Coldharbour Lane
Bristol, BS16 1QY

South West HEI competitions:

Supported By:

The Universities SW Enterprise Awards project is part financed by the European Union's Competitiveness and Employment ERDF Programme and the Convergence ERDF Programme for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, via Knowledge Escalator South West. The Knowledge Escalator South West project secured over £2.3 million of ERDF investment through the South West Regional Development Agency (South West RDA).

The Competitiveness and Employment ERDF Programme and the Convergence ERDF Programme for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly are investing over £511 million in the South West of England to support innovation, enterprise and business support across the region.