Enterprise Fellowship Success
Posted on 2 April 2019
The York Enterprise Fellowships enable talented researchers to spend a year, fully funded, developing their research in close collaboration with organisations interested in the translational, and potentially commercial, application of their ideas.
Dr James Comerford has received one of these fellowships to help address the global problems caused by plastic pollution. Residual additives in plastics such as dyes, pigments, flame retardants, and contamination in plastic waste cause serious complications in the recycling process, dramatically limiting the quality and application of the subsequent end products.
Dr Comerford will be developing Addible, a unique research service to support plastic recycling in samples where additives are present. Addible will use computer modelling to identify sustainable formulations able to extract problem additives from plastics so they can be recycled.
As part of the enterprise Fellowship scheme, Dr Comerford will receive one-to-one expert mentoring and around £15,000 to support and progress his ideas. He will take part in a series of courses on business and finance, customer engagement, users and branding, and leadership. His fellowship has been supported through philanthropic donation by alumni Bryan and Lydia Gray.
Talking about the 2019 Enterprise Fellowship scheme, Professor Jon Timmis, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Partnerships and Knowledge Exchange said:
“The 2019 Fellows fought off stiff competition and are developing some potentially life changing ideas and products that can benefit societal health, wellbeing, the environment and economy. We are proud to be able to support them and their work in this way.”
Find out more about the 2019 Enterprise Fellowships.