University of Birmingham Enterprise teams recognised for outstanding achievement
The Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce recognised University of Birmingham Enterprise and start-up EvoPhase in its annual industry awards.
The Sustainability Trailblazer award was accepted by Dr Claire Litchfield, Senior Laboratory Manager and Luke Harper, Laboratory Technician Apprentice at the bio-incubator, the BioHub Birmingham.
UOB Enterprise has won the Sustainability Trailblazer Award, while innovative engineering design start-up EvoPhase received the Digital Revolutionary Award in the 2026 Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce Awards.
The awards celebrate those who have shown outstanding achievement in the region, and the recognition reflects the real, measurable impact delivered by supporting sustainability in industries that are at the heart of Birmingham’s new economic era.
UoB Enterprise supports innovation at its earliest stages, through IP protection, creating new companies and ventures, and securing investment to ensure new products, services and companies come to market and deliver practical solutions that alter the world’s approach to manufacturing, engineering, and transport. It also provides incubation for life science companies in its specialist bio-incubator, the BioHub Birmingham®.
The Sustainability Trailblazer award was accepted by Dr Claire Litchfield, Senior Laboratory Manager and Luke Harper, Laboratory Technician Apprentice at the BioHub Birmingham®, while Dr Dominik Werner, CEO of EvoPhase Ltd, accepted the Digital Revolutionary Award.
The team supports researchers and entrepreneurs as they turn early ideas into real businesses in many sectors. From bioscience to clean energy, smarter materials and water use, our focus is simple: help great ideas grow, and keep them here in Birmingham.
UoB Enterprise helps new businesses across a wide range of areas. Many of these will make significant contributions to global sustainability, such as PeroCycle, a spin-out company launched last year, that is pioneering a technology that could reduce carbon emissions from steel-making industries by as much as 90%. Others, such as EvoPhase, which created the design for the world's first AI-designed, geographically tailored urban wind turbine, had a more local impact by the installation of a prototype wind turbine in Birmingham. However, they hold ambitions for a greater reach in the years to come.
Receiving the Digital Revolutionary Award on the same evening that University of Birmingham Enterprise was recognised as Sustainability Trailblazer was a very proud moment. Their support has been invaluable to EvoPhase's growth. For a young company, this kind of recognition means a great deal and reinforces our belief that Birmingham is an exceptional place to build ambitious, impact-driven technology businesses.
The Enterprise team is committed to instilling sustainability across all its operations, and in the last year implemented its own ambitious plan to transform the sustainability rating of the BioHub Birmingham, which achieved the Silver Green Impact Labs Award, and accreditation under the SOS-UK Green Impact Labs scheme. The framework aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and includes measures to reduce environmental impact through effective resource management.
Angie Reynolds said: “We provide fully-serviced laboratory incubation, and so have the ability to shape, model and instil sustainability best practice in young life science companies.”
Notes for editors
Notes for editors
For media information contact Ruth Ashton, University of Birmingham Enterprise, email: r.c.ashton@bham.ac.uk.
About the University of Birmingham
As well as being ranked among the world’s top 100 institutions, the University of Birmingham is the most targeted UK university by top graduate employers. Its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers, educators and more than 40,000 students from over 150 countries.
University of Birmingham Enterprise helps researchers turn their ideas into new services, products and enterprises that meet real-world needs. We also provide incubation, and support innovators and entrepreneurs with mentoring, advice, and training, manage the University’s Academic Consultancy Service, and University of Birmingham Enterprise Operating Divisions. Follow us on LinkedIn and X.