Bright SCIdea Challenge 2023 – everything you need to know as deadline looms

Calling university students and entrepreneurs with a plausible scientific concept for a product or service

The deadline is looming for submission of this year's SCI Bright SCIdea Challenge business plans. Tomorrow, 3 February, marks the day when all business plans from registered teams need to be submitted. University students can still register and submit a plan for a plausible product or service.

If you haven’t registered a team yet and would like to, please get in touch as soon as possible at BrightSCIdea@soci.org – the Bright SCIdea team is on hand to help, and some exceptions may be made to the deadline.

Previous winners of the annual contest entered with ideas around sustainable concrete or new technology to tackle cardiovascular disease. The winning team will receive a cash prize of £5,000.

This is the fifth year of the contest, which has helped shape new businesses and support start-ups with advice on key business issues like sourcing funding, networking and IP considerations. Bright SCIdea is an international contest and teams can be mixed across countries as well as institutions. The business plans will be judged at SCI HQ in February, and shortlisted teams will be invited to pitch in person to expert judges from science based industry, tech investment and scientific publishing. This year’s final will take place at SCI in London on Tuesday 21 March 2023.

Natasha Boulding of Low Carbon Materials (LCM) and her team have already provided business training to this year's registered teams. In 2019, as Plastech Innovation, the team walked away with first prize. LCM is now shaping the green construction sector with its science-based, low carbon, new-age building material OSTO®, and was a finalist for the prestigious Earthshot Prize last year.

Natasha said:

‘Winning Bright SCIdea was a real springboard for us. We received invaluable training and business advice and expanded our industry network which helped us attract business funding. Investors have been impressed by our thought leadership which has included being invited to take part in SCI’s COP26 panel debate last year. To have our low-carbon, waste-based building material recognised as a formidable solution that can be scaled to reverse environmental damage and to better protect the environment is truly game-changing.’

A summary of the 2022 Bright SCIdea final can be found here.