Young Entrepreneurs Scheme 2019 Open for Application

The Young Entrepreneurs Scheme (YES) is an innovative competition designed to develop business awareness and understanding of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial culture among the UK’s postgraduate students, postgraduate researchers and wider early-career research community.

The format of YES is a series of five, three-day thematic workshops (on the themes of Digital; Energy, Engineering and Environment; Biosciences, health and wellbeing; Plant, microbial and environment; and Biomedical) where teams of between four and five early-career scientific researchers prepare a business plan for a hypothetical company. Teams will develop ideas based on science that is realistic, but is currently hypothetical.

On first two days of each workshop, participants attend presentations from leading figures in industry, covering on all aspects of knowledge exchange and the commercialisation of ideas. Participants will then apply this knowledge to prepare an oral business plan presentation for a hypothetical start-up company. The winning teams from each workshop will compete in the final, hosted by the Royal Society in London, with a chance to win prizes from a £15,000 prize fund.

The competition is aimed at researchers in the early stages of their research career in a UK university, for example PhD students or those working on their first or second postdoctoral research appointment. Applicants should:

Not hold an undergraduate or postgraduate business degree.

Have not participated in a YES Competition before.

Be registered as a researcher at a university up until 31 December 2019.

Participants based in universities in countries outside the UK are also welcomed but will have to cover their own travel costs.

Applicants must first register on the YES Competition website to access the application form.

Teams should submit their application by the deadline of 18 May 2019.

Residential workshops will take place from 2 October to 8 November 2019, with the Final in London for selected teams on 10 December 2019.

More information about this research funding opportunity and the application process is available on the RESEARCHconnect funding information platform. RESEARCHconnect provides up-to-the minute content, insight and analysis on research funding news and policy. To find out more about how RESEARCHconnect can keep you in the know, and subscription fees, contact us today.