From space-age idea to everyday reality: showcasing emerging technologies

Learn more about how the annual final provides businesses with profile, funding, validation and feedback.

Every day, ideas pop up in the heads of academics, fledgling entrepreneurs, and small businesses and research facilities across the nation, but not all of them make it out of the door and into the market. But these are ideas that could one day be nurtured into thriving businesses that could contribute to everything from cleaning up our water to new ways to treat diabetes, as well as contributing significant value to our economy. But getting started as a very early-stage idea can be challenging.

The Emerging Technologies Competition exists to bring these ideas to the light, show the impact they can have on sustainability challenges or improving our quality of lives and health, and it helps validate and support these ideas to get out of the lab and into the world.

On 4 July we showcased 24 technologies that are the peak of innovation and potential.

Selecting the very best emerging ideas

In the run up to the event, hundreds of applications are submitted, highlighting the very best in ingenuity, vision for a better world, and an entrepreneurial mindset. Our panel of judges come from backgrounds ranging from entrepreneurship to large corporations with a wealth of experience in developing technologies across the health, cleantech, and consumer goods markets, as well as keen expertise in commercialising emerging technologies and an eye for spotting the next big thing.

Part of the rigorous judging process is to select ventures and technologies based on their potential to address the problem that they are facing, their market opportunities, and the business’ planned approach to exploit these opportunities and have impact. This means that every business selected has enormous potential to make a difference in society and they will also have significant growth potential.

''This competition provides the opportunity for great entrepreneurs to showcase exciting, innovative technologies. As a judge, I see my role as providing helpful feedback on how to improve the prospect of successfully commercialising an idea that provides a benefit to society.''
Kevin Matthews, Enabling Technologies judge

On the day

Every year the audience is not only filled with the adrenaline of the finalists bracing themselves to pitch, but abuzz with genuine excitement to see a showcase of what is up-and-coming in the industry and find out how the people in that room could change the world.

Over the course of our Energy, Environment, Enabling Technologies and Health categories, each finalist gets 10 minutes to tell the judges about the problem they are trying to solve and how their technology could be the answer. They will also outline how they will go about scaling that solution to create the proportions needed to address the challenge and their business plan to deliver that success.

Finalist Bindethics' CEO Victoria Garcia pitches their technology to the Environment judges

Each panel of judges then has the opportunity to explore the technology and solution more, as well as quiz them on their business plan. This time with the judges can provide feedback and validation that can prove invaluable in helping an early stage business decide where to focus next; from deciding on spinning out to identifying challenges to tackle in scale up.

''I really enjoyed the opportunity to get on stage and pitch to a panel of industry experts who are working in medical technology, healthcare, or pharmaceutical companies. Being able to be questioned and get feedback from them is priceless.'
NIQS, previous winner case study

With such an abundance of varied and high potential ideas, it can be hard for the judges to select one stand-out technology. However, each year the judges consider the creative vision and technologies and business plans and select four pioneering businesses to celebrate.

The winner’s award ceremony is an exhilarating event filled with optimism for the solutions and the futures of everyone in the room. It’s an opportunity to not only celebrate the winners but congratulate every fantastic finalist on their ground-breaking innovations. It also brings together the brightest minds in the industry pipeline with an opportunity to network and form connections with others going through their challenges and experts in the audience who can help them take their next step.

''The competition was really stiff, everybody in there deserved it, and I'm really honoured and also emboldened to see that finally a panel of true experts value the technology as much as we do. It's incredible, and that really gives us the motivation to go forward.''
Liam Dodd, Chief Operating Officer, ThioTech Ltd
2024 winner

A chance for our winners and finalists to network after the awards ceremony

The impact of the competition

After the competition, each of the winners receives a £25,000 prize that will help them advance their technologies. From buying new equipment to hiring new staff or focussing on scale-up, this prize money is a vital boost for these early-stage businesses. Our winners also get raised profile in the form of press-releases and campaigns from the Royal Society of Chemistry, and many of our finalists and winners will go on to receive other support from the Royal Society of Chemistry, such as access to our Change Makers for Ventures programme.

''The prize money is obviously a big help to us - we'll be using that to help us incorporate as a business, do more micro-research and help us find partners - but I think as well, there's the recognition. This gives us an opportunity to go out, get some traction and really speak to new partners and build the company. It's really great to win this award."
Professor Stuart Scott, University of Cambridge
2024 winner

This helps eligible businesses power positive change by offering specialist support such as mentoring, masterclasses, networking, investment and more. This support was developed with deep tech chemistry and its unique challenges at its heart.

Following the Emerging Technologies Competition, our 68 winners have gone on to raise a combined total of over £200M in equity investment and grant funding, they’ve expanded overseas, secured commercial contracts, collectively doubled their number of employees and conducted clinical and industrial scale trials. This cohort is a powerhouse for change in the world and we’re inspired by the way they are reshaping the way we live and improving our society and well-being.

Find out more about this year’s winners

This year’s finalists have turned medical waste into chemical feedstocks, produced reusable menstrual products to improve quality of life in developing countries, degraded PFAS with sonolysis, and much more. Find out more about the vast breadth of technologies represented  at this year’s final and how they are creating impact.

This year’s deserving winners have now been announced:

Enabling Technologies: Imperial College London
Imperial College London have innovated solid-phase peptide synthesis to allow the synthesis of multiple peptide fragments on a single bead. This improves on the classic approach of making one fragment per bead, which boosts the productivity of existing peptide analogues.

Energy: University of Cambridge  
Hydrogen is a promising carbon-free fuel that currently relies on fossil methane or expensive electrolysers. H2Upgrade converts zero-value industrial wastes into high-purity hydrogen and enables waste-producing companies to become hydrogen producers and consumers.

Environment: ThioTech Ltd  
Utilising low cost and abundant waste product, elemental sulfur, and sustainably sourced chemicals, their next generation absorbents remove toxic metal residues from water, oil, and gas.

Health: Ignota Labs  
Over half of all small molecular projects fail due to safety issues, causing a loss of up to £100BN and 1,500 potentially life-changing drugs every year. Ignota Labs have developed a novel AI platform to understand the root of these problems and understand drug interactions with the body and their biological impact, and thus enable drug failure turnaround.

Congratulations to all of these incredible businesses and their pitches, we’re excited to follow your journeys and see how you will turn your ideas into real world impact, and we can’t wait to see what new technologies will emerge next year.

Being part of Change Makers

Our Change Makers ventures receive a monthly newsletter with signposting and support from the Royal Society of Chemistry and other identified external sources. If you are an early stage start-up or scale-up focussed on deep tech chemistry, we invite you to get in touch and discuss joining Change Makers for ventures. 

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