About
The Blueprint Business Planning Competition brings together all five North East universities to develop the sharpest business ideas from the region's graduates, undergraduates staff and Alumni.
The Universities of Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland and Teesside each hold their own business planning competitions throughout the year, and the winners of these competitions go forward to compete in the regional Blueprint competition. Entrants to both the local and regional competitions receive expert business advice to help them turn their bright business ideas into well researched, practical business plans.
The regional Blueprint competition sees entrants present their business plans in three separate award categories: the Blueprint Business Award, Creativity & Design Awards and the Blueprint Science and Technology Awards. All three awards offer significant cash prizes and in-kind business support from the region's business community, as well as a great deal of regional and national exposure for their business. The Science & Tecnology strand of the greatly enhances the competition, giving academic staff and Alumni the opportunity compete.
The idea for Blueprint was devised by Professor Max Robinson of the North East Centre for Scientific Enterprise (NECSE). Professor Robinson created Blueprint as the perfect way to unite the five local universities and the region's forward-thinking businesses, and ensure that talented, enterprising students remained in the North East region to develop their talents.
The first ever Blueprint Business Planning Competition took place in 2004 and was an outstanding success - 450 new business plans were generated across the five universities. The 2006 competition was an even greater success than that of 2004 and 2005, with a total of £100,000 of cash and in-kind support available to winners.