An audience of more than 130 guests, from a wide range of local and global organisations with whom the University works in partnership, celebrated the best of the University’s entrepreneurial and enterprising academics and graduates.
The far-reaching impacts of their game-changing work were recognised across three categories with almost 5,000 public votes cast to decide the winner of the Impact Award. The winners of the Commercial Potential and Partnership Awards were decided by a judging panel.
As well as recognising existing excellence, the annual Awards are focused on strengthening the University’s partnerships with numerous organisations.
Last night’s winners were:
- Impact: Map-matching and crash-mapping algorithms which have helped reduce accidents and congestion on Britain’s roads, in partnership with Highways England and AECOM
- Commercial Potential: FloodMap Live – a unique real-time street-level flood prediction solution developed to save lives and livelihoods worldwide
- Partnerships: Rolls-Royce – the University’s long-standing collaboration has helped transform the way Rolls-Royce researches, designs tests and delivers cutting-edge technology to market
Special awards for Outstanding Potential were made to Alcuris and INCUS Performance – fast-scaling tech companies founded on LUSEP by recent Product Design Engineering graduates Alex Nash and Chris Ruddock, which have collectively raised in excess of £2 million investment and created 25 highly skilled technical jobs, rising to 32 by the end of this year.
The University’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise and host of the Awards, Professor Tracy Bhamra, said:
“The partnerships we’ve celebrated this evening are fundamental to so much of what we do as a University.
“Not only do they enable successful enterprise activities to take place, they also help strengthen research, support teaching and deliver placements and graduate employment.
“I’m delighted that so many of our external partners are here to celebrate with us this evening, with an increasing number of them are based on campus at LUSEP – which is part of the new º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ and Leicester Science and Innovation Enterprise Zone. We look forward to strengthening these partnerships and developing new ones, to deliver more real-world impacts together."