Awards ceremony celebrates brightest engineering and science talent

Healthcare innovations that could improve doctor training, cancer diagnosis and phobia treatment were among the big winners at a prestigious awards ceremony celebrating the brightest young talents across the UK.

Seven sets of student-led science and engineering teams picked up awards at the latest ESBF Champion of Champions Competition held at London’s Royal Academy of Engineering on Friday 7 November.

Now in its seventh year, the competition brings together the country’s sharpest student and graduate entrepreneurs to tackle real-world challenges head-on.

The big winner was the Peach Simulators team from King’s College London, who picked up a total of £8,000 in prizes in two award categories for their reusable medical training devices which smell like peaches.

Rephobia from Queen’s University Belfast also scooped £3,000 for its virtual reality platform designed to improve phobia treatment.

The showdown marked the climax of a year-long series of enterprise contests held at universities across the UK, where thousands of students tested their creativity and resilience in pursuit of innovation.

After a day of intensive coaching from seasoned industry leaders, the student teams faced a dragons’ den-style finale, pitching their big ideas to a panel of experts for a chance to claim a share of the £17,000 prize fund.

Winners also unlocked mentoring opportunities, bespoke CV packages from PurpleCV and business book prizes.

The ten finalists will compete in two categories – Big Ideas and Startup.

The 2025 Champion of Champions Competition winners in full:

• Big Ideas winner (£3,000 plus mentoring): Rephobia, from Queen’s University Belfast
• Big Ideas runner-up (£1,500): FluoroGlow, from University of Exeter
• Startup winner (£3,000 plus mentoring): Peach Simulators, from University of King’s College London
• Startup runner-up (£1,500): BetaSync, from University of Edinburgh
• Enterprise Award (£5,000 plus mentoring): Peach Simulators, from King’s College London
• Best Presentation (£1,000, sponsored by PurpleCV): Sekhmet Biomed, from Imperial College London
• Best Technical Idea (£500, sponsored by e-Careers): CAnswer Biosolutions, from University of Aberdeen
• Pre-show public vote (£500): AeroTHAW, from Nottingham Trent University
• Audience Vote (£500): AeroTHAW, from Nottingham Trent University
• Social Media Prize (£500): AeroTHAW, from Nottingham Trent University

Carlo Saija from Peach Simulators said the prize money would be used to take their innovation to the next level, saying: “Now, we’re making everything in the university. We’re thinking of taking some of the prototypes forward for more industrial-level manufacturing, so we’ll be using the money to look at getting some moulds made. We can also start protecting some of our designs as well – we can do so much now.”

Liam Harte, founder of Rephobia, said he was thankful for the mentoring and coaching support he received: “I want to say a huge thank you for the opportunity. It’s amazing to see the roadmap of what I want to achieve for the next couple of years. I had brilliant mentoring – I actually revamped the presentation entirely. That feedback is so important as a solo founder. Getting that other perspective and not being in your own echo chamber is vital and I think it fed into the reason why I won.”

David Falzani MBE commented: “What an incredible competition. All our finalists delivered outstanding presentations. Their business ideas are ambitious and truly innovative.” He added: “We now partner with over 50 universities and over the past year alone nearly 5,000 students took part in these enterprise competitions reaching an audience of around 500,000 students.”