Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

Bedfordshire's Cranfield University received the prize for its leading international role in humanitarian demining, work it began on a long-term basis to help build sustainable national capabilities in mine-affected countries following an approach in 1999 from the United Nations.

Cranfield has developed a strategy to help mine-affected countries build their own resilient national capabilities and reduce their dependence on international demining organisations and to date has delivered training to over 1,000 managers from 68 countries including Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia and Iraq.

Cranfield also provides lead ership in other aspects of mine clearance including technology management courses, testing and evaluation of metal mine detectors, ground penetrating radar and personal protective equipment.

The University of Cambridge's Institute of Biotechnology won its prize in recognition for innovative research and entrepreneurial training. In just two decades, the Institute has successfully demonstrated that entrepreneurial scientists can be selected, trained, nurtured and encouraged within an academic environment.

It filed 19 per cent of the University's new UK patents in 2005/6 and has helped to create nine spin-out companies with a current market capitalisation of approximately £250 million.

Professor Chris Lowe, director of the Institute, said: "Entrepreneurially-inclined business trained graduates rarely have sufficient fluency in science and technology to recognise oppor tunities or to gauge the intrinsic value of emerging developments in high technology.

"The Institute of Biotechnology is a global exemplar of how to ensure that entrepreneurial scientists can be nurtured within a well-managed academic environment."