Princess Royal Silver Medal

The Princess Royal Silver Medal recognises an outstanding and demonstrated personal contribution to UK engineering, which results in successful market exploitation, by an engineer with less than 22 years in full-time employment or equivalent (any career breaks will be appropriately considered by the Committee). Up to four medals are awarded each year. Consideration will be given where an equal contribution has been made by more than one person, in which case, a joint award of two medals may be justified.

2024 winners

Dr Katerina Spranger

CEO and founder of Oxford Heartbeat Ltd

Katerina founded Oxford Heartbeat, an award-winning startup that increases the safety and accuracy of brain implant surgeries to treat cardiovascular disease and prevent strokes through AI software.

During brain implant planning, surgeons face a critical decision: selecting the right implant from hundreds of options. A millimetre’s difference in device size can cause devastating complications, additional surgeries, and wasted devices. Traditional surgical planning and implant selection methods are semi-manual and imprecise, often falling short of the accuracy required for optimal patient outcomes.

Oxford Heartbeat developed PreSize® Neurovascular, an AI-powered medical software suite for real-time planning of brain implant surgeries. PreSize shows surgeons with 95% accuracy how a particular implant fits in a patient’s anatomy, enabling them to select the best one for each patient and significantly improving patient outcomes.

Katerina has won multiple awards for her work and raised over £5 million in government funding to develop PreSize, including from Innovate UK and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). In 2020, Oxford Heartbeat won a prestigious ‘AI in Health and Care Award’ from the UK Government, which funded a landmark clinical trial measuring the impact of PreSize Neurovascular on clinical practice.

The company has commercial engagements with major international industry players, and as of 2024, PreSize is deployed across 12 countries worldwide.

Dr Daniel Jamieson

CEO of Biorelate Ltd

Dr Daniel Jamieson is the founder and CEO of Biorelate Ltd, a cutting-edge tech-bio startup at the forefront of using data science to revolutionise pharmaceutical research. Under his leadership, Biorelate has become a world leader in leveraging advanced data science methods to extract critical knowledge from vast amounts of pharmaceutical data and literature, significantly enhancing the discovery of novel biopharmaceuticals.

Biorelate offers multiple product lines powered by its proprietary platform, Galactic AI™, which Daniel first conceptualised during his PhD. Galactic AI™ employs sophisticated natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence (AI) to uncover hidden cause-and-effect relationships across 40 million published biomedical sources. 

This innovative platform provides unprecedented insights into disease pathways, enabling more precise and effective drug discovery. Daniel’s pioneering work has been instrumental in developing key focus areas within the biopharmaceutical industry. His commitment to advancing the field has led Biorelate to integrate generative AI, further enhancing the volume and quality of data analysis and improving customer experience.

Under Daniel's leadership, Biorelate has rapidly gained recognition as a leader in NLP-driven drug discovery. The company has successfully secured over $11 million in venture capital and angel funding, reflecting strong investor confidence in its innovative approach. Daniel has also forged strategic partnerships with major biopharma companies, including AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and many others, solidifying Biorelate’s position as a crucial player in the industry.

Dr Orr Yarkoni

CEO of Colorifix

Orr was a major contributor to the development of biological textile dyeing as a replacement for toxic and wasteful chemical processes. He co-founded the biotech company Colorifix seven years ago to scale up sustainable textile dyeing.

Colorifix has patented a method for biological dyeing that involves engineering microbes, such as bacteria to enable them to produce different pigments.

The resulting engineered microorganism can then produce the pigment just as it is produced in nature, and it can be used in conventional dyeing machinery.

Under Orr’s leadership, Colorifix has grown from a small start-up into an ever-accelerating SME working at the interface of engineering, biology, fashion and design.

The company has attracted £25M in funding, including from its lead investor the high-street brand H&M. It has also had several high-profile partnerships, including with Stella McCartney which led to a display at the V&A and Colorifix winning the prestigious Andam Fashion Award. Colorifix has developed an anti-viral/anti-microbial treatment for PPE showing further application areas for their technology.

Professor Jason Hallett

Professor of Sustainable Chemical Technology, Imperial College London

Jason has developed environmentally-friendly and economical solvent-based chemical processes designed for large-scale industries including renewable chemicals, textiles and cosmetics.

Seven UK-based technology companies have been spun-out of Professor Hallett’s research, most notable of which is Lixea LTD, a circular bioeconomy company which uses low-cost ionic liquids to process toxic wood waste. Traditional methods rely on preservatives that include heavy metals, and burning this waste wood leads to environmental contamination, meaning that over 2 million tonnes per year of wood waste is sent to landfill every year in the UK alone. 

Lixea’s patented biomass fractionation process uses liquid salts or ionic liquids as low-cost, environmentally friendly solvents to break the wood down safely and separate its components, enabling this expensive waste material to be converted into a valuable bioenergy resource.

Jason’s businesses have attracted more than £15 million in private and public funding. The technologies from these businesses currently operate between pilot to commercial scale with established savings in chemical usage, waste and carbon emissions.

2023 winners

Dr Saritha Arunkumar

IBM Public Cloud WorldWide Technical Leader for Security

Dr Saritha Arunkumar is an IBM security leader with more than 20 years of experience in the IT security space. An authority on blockchain, cybersecurity and biometrics, she has made vital contributions to the security of systems used in defence and finance.

Dr Arunkumar was an integral part of the $80 million UK/US International Technology Alliance (ITA) research programme, which was led by IBM and included the Ministry of Defence, US Army Research Laboratory and university and industrial researchers.

As well as contributing to internationally important projects, Dr Arunkumar is passionate about volunteering. She runs popular patent incubator master classes and helps school and university students appreciate the importance of ideation and patenting. A member of IBM’s Academy of Technology, she has led voluntary, cross-divisional projects, including promoting STEM in primary and secondary education.

Joel Gibbard MBE, Samantha Payne MBE

CEO of Open Bionics, COO of Open Bionics

Joel Gibbard MBE and Samantha Payne MBE are the co-founders of Open Bionics, which makes the first multi-grip myoelectric arm available for children.

The company uses 3D printing to reduce costs and increase the reach and accessibility of its bionic arms. The use of this additive manufacturing process also means its prostheses are lighter and more comfortable for children to wear, while 3D scanning is used to design bespoke details and ensure the best possible fit.

An innovative co-design process places users at the centre of the R&D and prototype iteration process to hone the functionality of the Hero Arm, while fun designs help children positively embrace what makes them unique. The company struck a royalty-free licensing deal with The Walt Disney Company enabling children to choose Disney, Star Wars and Marvel designs to resemble Iron Man, for example. Open Bionics is exceptional in its empowering approach totransformingchildren with limb differences into bionic superheroes.

More than 500 Hero Arms have been shipped across the USA, UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, enabling users to get excited about moving their new fingers and hugging their parents.

James Roberts

Founder and CEO of mOm Incubators

James Roberts is the inventor of a new neonatal incubator, designed, developed and manufactured in Britain that has helped premature babies thrive in NHS hospitals and in war-torn Ukraine.

The mOm Essential Incubator is a compact, cost-effective machine that has been designed to work in multiple environments. Its clever design solves problems associated with conventional systems and when packed up, it is less than a quarter of the size of a regular incubator, making it very portable. These features enable it to provide flexibility to the neonatal care system. It is being used in a series of pilots in four NHS hospitals to ease the need for short-term admission to special care and to help maintain the core temperature of babies being moved around the hospital.

The company estimates that between 1,500 and 2,000 babies have been positively impacted by its incubators and Ukraine’s Ministry of Health has asked for another 100.

2022 winners

Heba Bevan OBE

CEO, UtterBerry

Heba Bevan OBE is the CEO and Founder of UtterBerry Ltd, a patented, wireless sensor system that consists of a collection of miniature, artificially intelligent, ultra-low-power sensors. It has been used in major infrastructure projects including London’s Crossrail and Thames Tideway.

Heba is a businessperson and engineer with a track record of innovation in wireless sensors and sensor network design. Her technical expertise includes AI, machine learning, robotics, blockchain, optics, semiconductors, and communication systems. Heba is also committed to sustainability and the application of engineering to create new sustainable technologies in the electronics industry.

Professor Daniel Brett and Professor Paul Shearing

Professors of Chemical Engineering, UCL

Professor Daniel Brett and Professor Paul Shearing launched the Electrochemical Innovation Lab (EIL) at UCL in 2011. The EIL is now a leading centre for innovation in electrochemical technology in the UK, with more than 100 researchers providing solutions that are critical to achieving net zero. It operates at the intersection of university and industrial research, securing more than £45 million in collaborative R&D funding. It also provides researchers with mentoring and training to aid the market exploitation of new solutions, and has supported the formation of companies in low-cost fuel cell engineering, fast-charging technologies for advanced batteries and low-cost hydrogen electrolysers. 

Dr Oliver Payton

Chief Technology Officer, Bristol Nano Dynamics

Dr Oliver Payton has developed and successfully commercialised two innovative technologies capable of mapping the invisible, both of which have been exported all over the world.

As a PhD student, Dr Payton developed a new form of scanning probe microscope. The high-speed atomic force microscope (HS-AFM) allows observation of real-time dynamic processes at the nano scale. As an Academy Research Fellow, Dr Payton improved the microscope to the point of commercialisation and co-founded spinout company Bristol Nano Dynamics (BND). BND’s instrumentation is now being developed for genome mapping to rapidly spot common blood and breast cancers and  identify genetic diseases for which there are currently no tests.

Dr Payton has also developed a remote radiation mapping system, the basis of second spinout company ImiTec Ltd. The technology can be mounted to ground or air based vehicles to routinely search nuclear sites for radiological threats, providing a first response to a nuclear emergency. More recently, ImiTec’s Autonomous Airborne Radiation Monitoring System has been used to identify rare earth and precious metal mineral veins over a range of kilometres.

Dr Atif Syed

CEO and founder, Wootzano Ltd

Following research on flexible and compliant sensors, Dr Atif Syed developed a new electronic skin and founded Wootzano with the support of an Academy Enterprise Fellowship. The skin is now used within the company's robotic fruit and vegetable packaging system called, Avarai.

Fruit and vegetable packers across the world can struggle to get human labour and maintain quality and consistency in an industry with thin margins. Avarai uses the electronic skin on a robotic arm and hand to estimate weight, prune, quality-check, and package fresh produce into punnets, which are in turn bought by supermarkets. The e-skin can be stretched at least 150% without damaging the metallic contacts on top of it. The e-skin is food-safe and biocompatible and uses robotic end-effectors to delicately pick and place soft fresh produce – previously a difficult task for robots to complete without bruising or damaging the food.

Read more about the awardees