Double first for Teesside enterprising academics

Two academics from the University of Teesside have scooped top awards for academic research in entrepreneurship.

Philip Wickham, Senior Lecturer at Teesside Business School, won the £500 Barclays Bank prize for best paper on small business finance at the recent Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship conference which in November. The conference in Newcastle was sponsored by One North East. It attracted over 350 delegates from 20 different countries.

The research helped to quantify differences in the way that entrepreneurs and venture capitalists evaluate risk.

Another academic hitting the winning trail was Professor Ted Fuller, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Strategic Foresight at the University of Teesside. He was awarded overall best paper prize, in Copenhagen.

Professor Fuller and his co-author Dr Lorraine Warren were top of 160 research papers on small business and entrepreneurship. They received a prize of 1,000 Euros for their paper on complexity theory and entrepreneurship. The research provided a new model for understanding start-up and sustainability in entrepreneurial firms.

* Professor Fuller and a team from Teesside Business School were also in enterprising company last month when the Parcelforce Worldwide Small Business Awards were made at BAFTA in London.  The Teesside team had managed the judging for the awards, dealing with 3,000 entries this year.  At the finals, 22 small businesses and their guests heard from the minister for small business Nigel Griffiths, entrepreneurs Philip Green and Richard Branson, as well as from Professor Fuller, who chaired the judging panel.  The winner of the 2004 Parcelforce Worldwide Small Business Award was Blue Chip Feeds Limited from Sheffield.

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