The Yorkshire Enterprise Fellowship (YEF) was designed to help university and clinical scientists create a business based on their research. The Fellowship, funded by Yorkshire Forward, began in 2007 and all projects were completed at the end of March 2010. Both YEF and the pilot scheme Bioscience Yorkshire Enterprise Fellowship (BYEF; 2004-2006) delivered practical support to commercialise ideas and research findings from the region's universities and NHS Trusts.

A total of 65 Fellowships were awarded across the eligible disciplines of biosciences, chemicals and healthcare technologies, offering a fully-managed proof of concept support scheme.

What Does a YE Fellowship Offer?

Each Fellowship comprised:

• Tailored science and business development training delivered by experienced professionals
• A personal mentor from a relevant industry sector
• £10,000 direct support to develop the science and aid the commercialisation process.
• Customised market research
• A dedicated online project management facility
• Assistance to source finance to progress the idea to commercialsation
• A highly experienced and focused programme management team

From Yorkshire Forward's combined support across the two programmes of £3.5m, we have leveraged over £10.7m additional investment for the Fellows, providing a substantial return on public sector funds. 18 new businesses and jobs have been created so far, in addition to a wide range of other commercial outcomes such as industrial joint ventures, business:academic collaborations and licensing.

Scope

YEF Fellow Projects can be categorized into 3 key disciplines as detailed below:

Bioscience includes any development using modern biological techniques to develop products and/or services to serve the needs of human healthcare, animal health, agricultural productivity, food processing, energy & renewable resources or the environmental industries.

Healthcare Technologies covers industries and associated academic and clinical activities in the fields of medical devices, pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals.

Chemicals encompasses all aspects of chemical related activity including refining, organic/inorganic, pharmaceutical, medical, paint, coatings, fibres etc.