Innovators triumph at national knowledge exchange awards

Projects developed by University teams and individuals have been recognised at a national awards event.

Entries from the University won three of eight prizes at the annual Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards.

Awards hat-trick

The Wellcome iTPA team, part of Edinburgh Innovations, was crowned Knowledge Exchange Heroes for its work supporting early career researchers to commercialise.

The team of six, led by Dr Lysimachos Zografos, has built a community of more than 1300 researchers and supported 180 innovative health and wellbeing projects.

The team gave out £1.8 million in funding and returned a further £12.2 million – a 600 per cent return on investment.

Winner of Innovation of the Year was student startup Prozymi Biolabs, founded by biomedical science PhD Dr Ioannis Stasinopoulos.

Prozymi Biolabs is using novel gluten-degrading enzymes to improve the texture and flavour of gluten-free bread.

Maria Martinez Castillero, Genetics and Breeding Programme Manager of student startup BetaBugs, won the Innovator of the Future award.

BetaBugs, founded by Thomas Farrugia of the Roslin Institute, breeds black soldier flies as an alternative, sustainable protein source that can be used in aquaculture, pork, and poultry feed.

Collaborative successes

The awards, organised by knowledge exchange organisation Interface, celebrate innovative people and partnerships in the world of business-academic collaborations.

We are so pleased to have won – we have a great, dedicated team here at Edinburgh Innovations and a fertile environment to work in of diverse and brilliant early career researchers and a growing culture of innovation and entrepreneurship at the University of Edinburgh.

Well done to all of our early career researchers and those across the ecosystem who support them.

The iTPA team has been punching well above its weight and the Heroes award is well deserved! They have really harnessed and enabled early career researchers to take their research out into the world.

And Edinburgh Innovations is proud to continue supporting Prozymi Biolabs and BetaBugs, who are fantastic, sustainable innovators. These awards are testament to the strong innovation pipeline we are building here at Edinburgh.

These awards highlight valuable collaborations in Scotland which are developing cutting-edge innovations to make a real difference to people’s lives. The Scottish Government is committed to supporting information exchange between businesses and academia. 

Related links

Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards