THE most innovative businesses in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight are to be honoured at the South Coast Business Awards.

The University of Southampton is sponsoring the Innovation Excellence award at this year’s ceremony.

Professor Mark Spearing, the university's vice president for research and enterprise, said: "The University of Southampton champions of innovation in many spheres including local business.

"Our Future Worlds startup accelerator helps the next generation of company founders change the world with their ideas, including providing support for ViridiCo2. The University of Southampton Science Park and the award winning SeTSquared Partnership are also important components of this innovation ecosystem. We work with over 1,000 companies at any given time, many of which are local businesses.  

"We are regularly ranked as the most successful university in the UK for working with small and medium sized enterprises. Much of this success is via our enterprise units which provide technical expertise via consulting, access to our world leading facilities and help in accessing government funding schemes.  These are all important components of our commitment to be a strong civic university, which is an important asset to our region."

The South Coast Business Awards awards, organised by LOCALiQ, the digital marketing business of Daily Echo publisher Newsquest, celebrate business excellence across all the sectors which contribute to the Hampshire and Isle of Wight economy.

They recognise innovative industries, both big and small, operating in fields from food to fashion, tourism to technology, employing thousands of people, exporting around the world or helping to attract visitors to our county.

The sponsors Starling Bank, Hampshire Chamber of Commerce, Utilita, the University Of Southampton and GetSet Solent invite any company whose head office is based within Hampshire and the Isle of Wight to enter or to be nominated.

Nominations will be considered by our judging panel and may be subject to a “mystery shopper” visit by the category sponsor.

The judges will be looking to announce the three finalists in each category on Thursday, September 29, in the Daily Echo and at dailyecho.co.uk. The awards event will take place on Thursday, November 3, at Southampton FC’s St Mary’s Stadium.

The winners of each category will receive £250 of advertising in the Daily Echo or on dailyecho.co.uk and will also be featured in the category winners’ coverage in the Daily Echo and on dailyecho.co.uk The Business of the Year Award will be awarded to the overall winner that will be chosen by the judging panel from all the category winners.

Our Innovation Excellence award seeks to highlight organisations that have identified new products or services and successfully brought them to market or adapted an existing product for a new market.

Do you know a business like this? If so, you can nominate them. The judges are looking for the research and development of new ideas, innovative products or services. Businesses should be able to demonstrate evidence of positive change in the last 12 months or, have identified a strategy for change in the next 12 months.

Or, you may know someone who you could nominate for one of our other awards:

  • Service Excellence Award   
  • Employer Award   
  • Entrepreneur Award 
  • Business Leader Award 
  • Small Business Award 
  • New Business (opened in the past two years) Award
  • Mid-Large Business Award  
  • Business and the Community Award
  • Use of Technology Award.

You can enter online here.

The closing date for nominations is Thursday, September 8.