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Alumni Innovation Award

The University of Bath provides a nuturing environment for enterprising minds.

We pride ourselves on the comprehensive range of activities on offer to students to develop their own ideas and gain valuable experience during their degree programme. With the Alumni Innovation Awards, we seek to build on this foundation by offering promising final year students and researchers the chance to win an award to help take an innovative idea to market.

The 2025 Awards will open for applications in March 2025.

Do you want to start your own business?

Award winners are supported to develop their ideas into viable businesses, encouraging the next generation of entrepreneurs. Through these awards, we aim to encourage a culture of change across the University, with students seeing an aspiration to become an entrepreneur as a clear and viable career choice. With the help of the SETsquared network and award winning business incubation programme, the scheme helps launch businesses which have the potential for true global impact.

"The grant I received gave me validation and security to take the leap and pursue my business idea full-time." - Nia Simpson, Alumni Innovation Award 2019, Founder of Compact Cane

student sitting at a desk

The Scheme

The scheme is open to applications from final year students, post-graduates and researchers at the University of Bath. Applicants must be in their final year of study or research.

jubliant award winners

Awards will typically:

  • be made to individuals from any department/school at the University of Bath

or

  • complementary pairs of individuals from two different departments /schools at the University of Bath e.g. the Department of Computer Science and the School of Management

The Award offers:

  • an award (grant) of up to £20,000 (£1,500 of this funds a year of Virtual membership at SETsquared Bath’s award winning business incubator)

The grant assists with your living costs throughout the award year so that you can commit most of your time developing your business. The grant is not paid to your business and should not be considered as investment.

Awards are allocated at the discretion of the panel. Funds will be allocated in three tranches on the condition that milestones in the project plan are met. Your SETsquared Bath business mentor will monitor progress and sign off on the milestones before each payment is made to you. You will be expected to complete quarterly review forms describing your entrepreneurial journey and embrace opportunities to showcase your business at key events that we believe will be beneficial to you.

Alumni Award Winners

Meet the Alumni Innovation Award winners.

Application and Notification of Awards

To apply for a University of Bath Innovation Award, an applicant will typically have demonstrated commitment to innovation and enterprise through involvement in one or more of the enterprise activities on offer during the course of their studies/research or have developed ideas as a structured part of their degree. To become involved with Enterprise Bath join our Microsoft Teams group.

You will also be required to complete an application form and submit a business plan. If you need support writing a business plan please contact us.

This Award is not open to members of the public. You must be a University of Bath final year student, postgraduate or researcher to apply and receive the funding. One application per person not per business.

Terms and Conditions of the Alumni Innovation Award

Please find below the terms and conditions associated with the Alumni Innovation Award.

The Award (grant) value will be up to £20,000 to support your living costs during the year. The grant is not awarded to your business. Awards are allocated at the discretion of the panel. Funds will be allocated in three tranches on condition that milestones in the project plan are met. The SETsquared Bath business mentor will monitor progress and sign off on the milestones.

Membership of the SETsquared Bath Innovation Centre (£1,500 fee paid by the grant) is a pre-requisite for receiving the Award. Membership will start in the Autumn following allocation of the Award. The annual fee for SETsquared Bath Innovation Centre membership is included in the total amount granted and will be invoiced in full prior to the start of the incubation period.

Winners of the Award are expected to commit the majority of their time on developing their business post graduation.

Winners of each Award will attend a mentoring session at the SETsquared Bath Innovation Centre before spending time developing their product or service. The output of this session will be a delivery plan for the next 12 months.

Winners will be required to submit regular written updates against the development milestones in the project plan. These updates will be used as a public blog on the SETsquared Bath website. They will also be required to attend quarterly review sessions at the SETsquared Bath Innovation Centre. The updates and quarterly review meetings will be summarised and shared with the funders.

The funds for the Award are provided in grant form by the University of Bath Alumni department. Winners will be required to keep a regular blog to record their progress as entrepreneurs and the development of their businesses and occasionally be asked to contribute to press or promotional events and materials on behalf of the University of Bath and SETsquared Bath.

The University of Bath reserves the right to suspend the Award payments at any time.

Contact us

If you have any questions about your application please contact: