News
All of our Student News of our students' highlights and successes are below, including awards, prizes, and publications. If you are a current student and have something you are proud of and are happy for us to share, please contact us at or fill in this form.
Jessica Chadwick YES winner
On 21st January 2022, second year Birmingham student Jessica Chadwick (as part of a team made up of students and researchers from the universities of Birmingham, Nottingham and Keele), won the Environment YES21 prize.
The YES21 competition is a scheme for early career researchers to increase their awareness of research commercialisation.
The team's business concept, called RoboCrop, is a remote drone sensing operation that would allow early detection of pest and pathogen outbreaks using three different sensors (e-nose, IR and chlorophyll fluorescence). This would reduce pesticide inputs into fields, limiting environmental impacts and reducing costs for farmers. The team won a share of a £15k prize fund.
On their win, the team said:
"We are so proud of winning Environment YES21. Our multi-university team had to work virtually and didn’t know each other beforehand, despite this, we created a successful team. Syngenta’s workshop was uniquely rewarding with fantastic mentorship throughout. We have broadened our skill set in ways we hadn’t even considered before the competition. An amazing opportunity and having finally met in-person after the final, winning was the cherry on top."
Congratulations to Jess and the team.