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 initial support of £2.3m, the aim is to secure at least £3m additional levered funds and at December 2009 we have already achieved over £3m.

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.