First pan-European Awards Programme For Enterprise On Campus Accepting Nominations

Sept. 2, 2008 - PRLog -- Brussels – The ACES awards programme - launched by the Science|Business Innovation Board and backed by Europe’s top universities including Imperial College London and TU Delft - is now accepting nominations.

It is the first awards programme across Europe to focus on university spin-outs and their founders – often cited as a vital source of innovation in Europe – and is open to academic entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship enablers across the continent. The awards will give public recognition to those researchers, engineers, professors, students and government officials in Europe who have done the most in 2008 to foster a culture of enterprise on campus. This can be through taking the risk of launching a spin-out company, developing a discovery into a marketable innovation (perhaps at the risk of the tenure-track publication record), or promoting policies that create a receptive environment for entrepreneurship on campus.

Nominations for prizes in 7 categories including: ICT, Life Sciences, Energy/Environment, Materials/Chemistry, can be made online at www.sciencebusiness.net/aces. The contest concludes on 2 December in Stockholm at Karolinska Institutet with final judging, a conference on academic enterprise and an awards ceremony. Winners will receive public recognition for their achievement and a chance at investment by corporate and individual investors invited to review nominees.


NOTES FOR EDITORS
Special features

-The only pan-European awards for enterprise at universities and institutes
- Backed by some of Europe’s best research institutions
- Awards focus on individuals, rather than organisations
- Access to the Science|Business Investment Connection service linking nominees with potential investors

About the Science|Business Innovation Board

To encourage public dialogue about innovation policy in Europe, the Science|Business news service in 2007 created a blue-ribbon panel of leaders in industry, academia and policy, with the support of Microsoft Corp. The next meeting is on 2 December at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.

Regular participants in Innovation Board meetings include:
-Esko Aho, President, Finnish innovation fund SITRA, and former prime minister of Finland
- Pat Cox, President, European Movement, and former President of the European Parliament.  
-J. Frank Brown, Dean, INSEAD
-Jean-Philippe Courtois, President, Microsoft International
- Roch Doliveux, CEO and Chairman, UCB
- Denis Payre, Co-founder, Business Objects, and CEO, Kiala
- Philippe Pouletty, Managing Partner, Truffle Ventures, and Chairman, France Biotech
- Helmut Schühsler, Managing Partner, TVM Capital, and Chairman, European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association
- Harriet Wallberg-Henriksson, President, Karolinska Institutet


Organisation and reporting of the Innovation Board’s work is by the Science|Business news service, co-founded by Richard L. Hudson, former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe, and Peter Wrobel, former managing editor of Nature. Science|Business, based in London and Brussels, publishes news of R&D investment and policy daily online and in special print reports, and organises meetings of R&D policy makers, investors and researchers. It works with a network of 10 leading research institutes, including Imperia College London, Karolinska Institutet, University College London and ETH-Zürich. The company’s mission is to encourage enterprise in science.

Contact:
Richard L. Hudson
CEO & Editor
Science|Business Publishing Ltd.
+32 496 520305
richard.hudson@sciencebusiness.net

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About Science Business: Science|Business is an independent news and events service for early-stage investment in R&D, across Europe, across industries. Drawing on a network of leading journalists and scientific institutions, www.sciencebusiness.net reports on the first wave of technology - licensing, spin-off investment, intellectual property, contract research and corporate R&D management. Its aim: to bridge the gap between academia and industry in Europe.