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Dr Brian Tanner from Durham University and co-founder of Blueprint tells bdaily about this year’s competition

Dr Brian Tanner is the Dean of Knowledge Transfer at Durham University and co-founder and Director of Blueprint the university business planning awards. Now in to its 8th year, the competition encourages enterprise across the region’s five universities and has been the springboard for a number of successful businesses. This year’s Blueprint final takes place on Thursday 20th October

What is the basis of the Blueprint competition?

In 2003 Professor Max Robinson & I devised the idea of the regional business plan competition for all the five North East Universities as part of the North East Centre for Scientific Enterprise. The Blueprint competition was designed to foster the spirit of innovation across the region’s universities and create an enterprising environment in which the region’s future business leaders could flourish.

What is the success of the competition to date?

Over the years, Blueprint has become well regarded by both the private and public sector, for the role it plays in encouraging enterprise amongst our universities. It attracts widespread support from the business community both in terms of sponsorship and in the guidance and support that is offered through our mentor programme.

More than 200 businesses and 350 jobs have been created as a direct result of the competition, many of which play an important role in shaping the region’s knowledge economy. Companies such as F-Scan with its groundbreaking 3 minute prostrate cancer tests and Durham Graphene Science with its revolutionary methods of producing Graphene are leading the way in their field. Likewise businesses such as last year’s winner Charbrew with its upmarket fruit infused tea, have become recognised household names and can be found on the shelves of supermarkets around the country.

What support do the finalists take from the competition?

The level of support has increased in line with the growth of the competition. The winners receive a financial prize but far more important than the money is the access to such a strong network of experienced professionals who are willing to offer their help and advice.

The region’s professional services support the competition with lawyers, IP specialists, accountants, venture capitalists and marketers giving up their time to mentor and nurture all the finalists to ensure that their business plans are robust. The winners then receive free consultancy to help take their business plans from paper to reality. Other support might come in the form of free accommodation from which to operate their business.

We are always looking at ways of enhancing the competition and last year introduced a Meet the Finalists event- designed to facilitate those all-important, yet difficult to establish networking opportunities between the finalists and the region’s business community.

How important is it to encourage enterprise within the region’s universities?

If we are to drive forward a knowledge economy we must support and nurture the talent within our regional universities; be it to encourage our academics to put their in-depth subject knowledge to commercial use or to encourage our undergraduates to realise their ambitions and establish their own businesses within the region.

With employment opportunities currently more challenging for our graduates, encouraging entrepreneurship has never been more important and we expect to see more and more graduates opting to set up in business as opposed to choosing the more traditional career routes. It is essential that we have a support framework in place to help and guide these individuals.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Jonny Marshall .