However, the University of Bath is making this plunge just a bit easier thanks to a collection of bursaries funded by alumni and friends of the University. The Embleton Innovation Bursaries, as they are called were supported by honorary graduate, entrepreneur, and former Pro-Chancellor, David Embleton.
Just recently Chris Shaw, a Mechanical Engineering graduate, received the first Embleton Innovation Bursary. The money will go towards his continued efforts to develop his novel heavy equipment control design.
Mechanical engineering professor Steve Culley sat on Shaw’s selection panel. Culley said that “Chris is very dynamic and has progressed his design idea considerably - he has also done some identification of the intellectual property and the various markets… We were pleased that as well as having a brilliant technical brain, he has an entrepreneurial spirit.”
The new bursary was inspired by a related financial aid program called the Geoff Herrington Innovation Bursaries. Though similar, this program, which started in 2013, supports new graduates while they are looking for ways to commercialize and nurture opportunities that were born from final year engineering projects.
Dean Gary Hawley said “These bursaries provide invaluable opportunities for some of our brightest new graduates to turn their brilliant ideas into business. I’m pleased that our engineering alumni and other friends of our University are recognising the importance of entrepreneurship within engineering and I would like to thank them whole-heartedly for their support.”
Source: University of Bath.