University Competitions

Leading Engineering Endeavours

The Leading Engineering Endeavours Project is undertaken by second year engineering students at Birmingham City University (BCU). A total of 101 students took part this year, put into interdisciplinary teams drawn from mechanical, automotive, electronic and manufacturing disciplines. The teams were set a challenge by the Rivers Trust to design and prototype a low-cost solution for monitoring soil health.

WE Innovate

WE Innovate – organised by Imperial Enterprise Lab, Imperial College London’s dedicated entrepreneurship training centre – is an annual six-month programme and competition championing women-led teams with an entrepreneurial idea to explore. Teams are supported with masterclasses, business coaching, 1-to-1 expert support, peer mentoring and much more.

Bright Ideas Challenge

The Bright Ideas Challenge is an elevator pitch competition open to Durham University’s engineering, computer science or bioscience students, or multi-disciplinary teams comprising students from these degree categories.

Fourth Year Poster Competition

The University of Oxford’s Business Innovation award aims to reward engineers who develop ingenious ideas that could solve real problems in society in a sustainable manner. Projects are needs-led, have a strong market fit or have a well defined problem with a clear costumer base for which an innovative solution is developed.

New Enterprise Competition

The New Enterprise Competition is the University of Bristol’s flagship business idea challenge fund. Run annually, participants can win up to £35,000 in prize funding, in part sponsored by Engineers in Business. Prizes include cash, legal support, marketing,  business acceleration services support and bespoke mentoring.

The competition has been run for more than 20 years and is open to all entrepreneurially inclined students and recent alumni across the university.

UoB Engineers in Business Competition

University of Birmingham engineering students entered into a competition to help solve real problems in society through engineering. Teams and individuals from across the university competed to win a share of a prize pot to help bring their ideas to life.

TEDI-London Summer School

The TEDI-London Summer School is the provider’s annual international design sprint, welcoming their founding partners’ students as well as other students in full-time higher education. The students spend three weeks immersing themselves in a set topic on its Canada Water campus. This year’s theme imagined the future of Canada Water, centred around the global challenges of transport. The challenge: how to provide seamless, safe, net zero, connected, cost-effective, accessible and reliable transport solutions for the community, from young to old, and including visitors to the area.

Flare

The University of Hertfordshire’s  enterprise ideas challenge, Flare, is a highly competitive annual competition that gives Herts student and alumni entrepreneurs the support and training they need to bring their business ideas to life, no matter how far along they are in development.

Ingenuity

The Ingenuity Programme provides start-up skills and training, networking, mentoring, and routes to funding for early-stage impact-driven businesses to make social and environmental change.

Foundation Year “Business Case for Engineers” Project

The Business Case for An Engineering Design Proposal is an assessed component of the ENG0014 Engineering and Physical Sciences Laboratory and Project module.  This project provides foundation students with an insight into the entrepreneurial aspects and the multi-disciplinary nature of engineering and science and enhances skills in a variety of areas including presentation, working collaboratively, managing deadlines, and idea generation. Students worked in groups to make a business case for an engineering, IT, communications, or physical sciences-based idea.

Engineering You’re Hired

Engineering You’re Hired is an intensive one-week (35-hour) activity that is compulsory for all second years within the Faculty of Engineering.

BUSI60042 Entrepreneurship Online

Imperial College Business School’s Entrepreneurship Online (BUSI60042) allows students to design a business based on gaps they saw in the market and issues relevant to their communities.

Business Competition

The UHI Business Competition is an annual flagship event run by CREATE, the Highlands and Islands hub for Enterprise and Innovation based in the Centre for Living Sustainability at UHI Inverness.

Elevate

The University of Exeter’s Elevate competition encourages and supports engineers who want to take their ideas from the drawing board to the market. It is a unique opportunity for student engineers to access targeted early-stage venture creation support, exploring innovation beyond their curricular project-based learning.

Dragons' Den

QUB’s Dragons’ Den, competition is one of many initiatives organised by SU Enterprise, the entrepreneurial arm of Queen’s Students’ Union which helps students develop enterprise skills and start their own businesses.

Ingenuity National Competition

The Ingenuity Programme provides start-up skills and training, networking, mentoring, and routes to funding for early-stage impact-driven businesses to make social and environmental change. The programme supports participants in turning ideas for change into exciting new ventures and adopts an agile and flexible approach to ensure we are diverse, inclusive and accessible CDIO).

Grand Challenge

The Grand Challenge is a three-week project where students work in cross-disciplinary and cross-year teams to conceptualise, design and produce a product (in line with CDIO).

Surrey Electrical and Electronic Engineers in Business Competition

The University of Surrey’s Enterprise Project embraces the Surrey Electrical and Electronic Engineers in Business Competition. The Enterprise Project is a year-long group project carried out by second-year students from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Surrey. Students work in groups to create innovative concepts relating to the Information Communications Technology, Electronics and Computing sectors that have the potential for commercialisation.

MSc Entrepreneurship Pitch Day: Innovating Engineers Challenge

The MSc Entrepreneurship Pitch Day competition fosters small teams of MSc Entrepreneurship and other UCL Engineering students to create innovative business ideas.

Big Ideas Competition

Cardiff Metropolitan University’s Big Idea Award is one of six categories featured in our Entrepreneurship Awards which takes place on our annual Day of Entrepreneurship.

Venture

Venture is Scotland’s largest university funding competition for new business ideas. Venture is a three-stage new business idea competition for all University of Dundee Students, Staff and Recent Graduates split across different prize fund categories.

BUSI60041 Entrepreneurship Module

Imperial College Business School’s Entrepreneurship module (BUSI60041) allows students to design a business based on gaps they saw in the market and issues relevant to their communities.

Bright Ideas

Bright Ideas is Kingston University’s annual entrepreneurial competition, open to all students across the university.

Spring Start-Up Awards

This year Cardiff University run three different awards as part of its Spring Start-Up Awards this year: Inspired Engineer, Social Enterprise and Go Getter. Each category reflected the stage of development of each entrant’s business idea. Engineers and computer scientists applied for all three of the award categories depending on which award they felt best matched the stage of development of their business idea.

Starting a Business Module

The University of Warwick’s Starting a Business module examines how businesses are established. The module gives second-year Engineering Undergraduates the opportunity to understand and appreciate the challenges involved in setting up their own business.

InvEnterPrize Student Ideas Competition

InvEnterPrize is Aberystwyth University’s Student Ideas Competition which is open to undergraduates, post-graduates and recent graduates. The competition rewards the entrant with the Best Business Idea.

Solar Decathlon Design Challenge & Setty Family Foundation Net Zero Energy Design

The Solar Decathlon Design Challenge is an annual collegiate competition that challenges teams to design highly efficient, innovative, and sustainable buildings that are powered by renewable energy sources. The competition is organised by the US Department of Energy and involves ten contests that cover various aspects of building design and performance, such as architecture, engineering, energy production, and market potential. The challenge encourages interdisciplinary collaboration and provides students with a hands-on learning experience in sustainable design and construction.

Edinburgh Innovations Business Idea Competition

The Business Idea Competition for Engineering Students and Graduates is run annually by the University’s commercialisation service, Edinburgh Innovations, and invites students to pitch their business ideas and win up to £1,000 to launch their innovation.

The Dragons' Den

The University of York’s Business Innovation & Entrepreneurship course provides broad coverage of what’s involved in the exploitation of technologies through innovation and entrepreneurship and incorporates the Dragons’ Den Competition.

Invent for the Planet

Invent for the Planet (IFTP) is an innovation fostering 48-hour global collaborative hackathon, in which students from 27+ universities come together to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing our planet.

King's College London Engineers in Business Competition

The Idea Factory is King’s College London’s flagship idea generation competition! The competition aims to nurture the biggest and best ideas from across the university that have the potential to grow into ventures.

UCL MSc Entrepreneurship Pitch Day

The MSc Entrepreneurship at UCL School of Management is UCL’s flagship Entrepreneurial course. During a one-year programme designed for students who intend to start and run high-impact businesses, they learn to research and develop new ideas.

University of Oxford Engineers in Business Competition

The Maurice Lubbock Poster Competition provides an amazing platform for students to showcase their innovations to representatives from industry and Government, alumni, academics and fellow students who attend the Lubbock Lecture.

University of Birmingham Engineers in Business Competition

Birmingham University’s Engineers in Business Competition is one of the many initiatives the Careers Network B-Enterprising Team offers to support enterprising and entrepreneurial students.

Second Year Engineering Module - ENGR205 Business Development Project

Lancaster University’s Second Year Engineering Module (ENGR205 Business Development Project) covers a range of material on student entrepreneurship, innovation, idea generation, business planning, marketing, presenting and pitching, using tools such as the Business Model Canvas, and various external and industrial speakers to supplement and reinforce the taught theory.

Innovation Fest - Leading Engineering Endeavours Project

The Leading Engineering Endeavours Project is undertaken by second-year engineering students at Birmingham City University (BCU). Students work in interdisciplinary teams drawn from mechanical, automotive, electronic, and manufacturing disciplines. The teams were set a challenge by the Environment Agency to design and prototype a low-cost anemometer. The context was to provide a means of measuring air pollution dispersion in urban environments by using a network of anemometers.

Bright Ideas

Bright Ideas is Kingston University’s annual entrepreneurial competition, open to all students across the university.

Entrepreneurship Online and Entrepreneurship

Imperial College Business School provides two undergraduate entrepreneurship courses for undergraduate engineers and scientists. The courses are Entrepreneurship Online and Entrepreneurship (face-to-face).

The Mayor's Entrepreneurs Competition: Design & Practice Module

London South Bank University (LSBU) supports student applications to The Mayor’s Entrepreneurs Competition. The Mayor’s Entrepreneurs Competition is a prestigious competition that allows entrants to demonstrate a combination of engineering and entrepreneurial excellence. LSBU’s Engineering School has an embedded programme called Design and Practice which introduces enterprise to engineers – this programme is supported by the Engineers in Business prize fund. The goal is to support as many quality applications as possible to go forward in The Mayor’s Entrepreneurs Competition.

Business Case for An Engineering Design Proposal

The Business Case for An Engineering Design Proposal is an assessed component of the ENG0014 Engineering and Physical Sciences Laboratory and Project module. This project provides foundation students with an insight into the entrepreneurial aspects and the multi-disciplinary nature of engineering and science, and enhances skills in a variety of areas including presentation, working collaboratively, managing deadlines, and idea generation.

Surrey Electrical and Electronic Engineers in Business Competition

The Surrey Electrical and Electronic Engineers in Business Competition provides an opportunity for students to enhance their business awareness, build entrepreneurial skills and develop transferable skills such as team working, project management, presentation, negotiation and leadership.

SEED Startup Fund Competition

The University of Southampton’s SEED Start-Up Funding Competition supports students in the creation and development of early-stage businesses or social enterprises through the awarding of funding prizes. Students have to submit business plans and video pitches before being shortlisted to pitch in front of a panel of judges.  The Engineers in Business Competition has been integrated into the SEED Fund to engage more engineers and students with engineering-related business ideas to develop their own start-up businesses.

Flare Ignite

Flare Ignite is a highly competitive annual competition that gives Herts students and alumni entrepreneurial support and training to bring their business ideas to life.

New Enterprise Competition

The University of Bristol’s New Enterprise Competition (NEC) is a business start-up competition that allows students, staff and alumni to pitch for a share of £35,000, legal support and business acceleration services, to develop a commercial or social enterprise.

The Capstone Project

The University of East London’s Capstone Project is designed for final-year students in the Engineering and Construction clusters at the School of Architecture, Computing and Engineering.  A Capstone Project must include evidence that students have ‘applied analytical judgement’ in the context of an engineering or construction-related subject.  Projects are assessed based on three tasks: the Development of a Project Plan, a Project Written Report and an Oral Presentation of the Report.

WE Innovate

WE Innovate is Imperial’s flagship female entrepreneurship education programme designed to support the next generation of women entrepreneurs to accelerate their startups.

Big Pitch

The Big Pitch is Anglia Ruskin University’s annual business ideas competition exclusively for undergraduate and postgraduate students, from any faculty or core campus.

Inspired Engineer Award

The Inspired Engineers Award seeks to encourage and promote entrepreneurial and commercial thinking among student engineers.

Ingenuity

The Ingenuity Programme works with students, graduates and under-represented communities to help create exciting new ventures that can create significant social and environmental impact. The annual programme is designed to find local-but-scalable solutions to build stronger communities, improve health and tackle climate change. Rooted in the University of Nottingham’s commitment to civic entrepreneurship, Ingenuity and its partners provide skills and training, mentoring, networking and funding to early-stage social enterprises.

Bright Ideas Challenge

The Bright Ideas Challenge is an elevator pitch competition open to Durham University’s Engineering, Computer Science or Bioscience students, or multi-disciplinary teams comprising students from these degree categories.

Engineering You're Hired

Engineering You’re Hired is an intensive one-week activity that is compulsory for all second years within the Faculty of Engineering. Students choose their problem and are then placed in multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural teams to work on a conceptual design and a plan for a project to take the design to the proof of concept stage.

University of the Highlands and Islands Business Competition

The University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) Business Competition is a well-established and high-profile competition open to all students across 13 UHI sites. The competition reaches out through a broad regional marketing campaign to approximately 40,000 FE, HE and Postgraduate students and researchers based in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, with a strong focus on supporting students both at the application, shortlisting and post-competition stage.

Grand Challenge

Nottingham Trent University’s Grand Challenge is a three-week project where students work in cross-disciplinary and cross-year teams to conceptualise, design and produce a product (in line with CDIO).

Engineering Design Competition

Canterbury Christ Church University provides its engineering students with a higher education experience that equips them for success with their aspirations and in making a wider contribution to society, beyond graduation.

Dragons' Den

Queen’s University Belfast’s Dragons’ Den, competition is one of many initiatives organised by Enterprise SU, the entrepreneurial arm of Queen’s Students’ Union which helps students develop enterprise skills and start their own businesses. Dragons’ Den competitors learn a wealth of business skills including pitching, marketing, finance and legal issues.

Starting a Business

The University of Warwick’s Starting a Business module examines how businesses are established. The module gives second-year Engineering Undergraduates the opportunity to understand and appreciate the challenges involved in setting up their own business.

Elevate

Elevate 2022 was the University of Exeter’s fourth year participating in the Engineers in Business Competition and was led by the Student Startups Team.

Student Ideas Competition

InvEnterPrize is Aberystwyth University’s Student Ideas Competition which is open to undergraduates, post-graduates and recent graduates. The competition rewards the entrant with the ‘Best Business Idea’

Enterprise Challenge

The University of Greenwich runs the Enterprise Challenge, an annual competition that provides mentoring, training and funding for entrepreneurial students who want to pursue an idea.

Business Innovation & Entrepreneurship

The University of York’s Business Innovation & Entrepreneurship course provides broad coverage of what’s involved in the exploitation of technologies through innovation and entrepreneurship.

Global Design Challenge

The Global Design Challenge (GDC) module is compulsory for all first-year students studying Engineering, Informatics and Product Design at the School of Engineering and Informatics and students studying Computing and Engineering at the International Study Centre.

Venture

This is the fourth Venture competition supported by Engineers in Business. Venture is an annual business idea competition for University of Dundee students, staff and recent graduates, with eight categories.