• Swindon & Wiltshire Innovation
• Wednesday June 17 2026

University of Bristol researchers turn ideas into winning innovations

A Lego-inspired portable printing press and a 4D morphing composite brace were the winning Early Career Enterprise Fellowship research projects at this year’s University of Bristol’s Festival of Enterprise.

Now in its fifth year, the annual Festival held at the University’s Arts Complex saw over 100 academics, researchers, postgraduate students, and partners in innovation and entrepreneurship learn about how new ideas emerging from research could be transformed into products, services, and ventures with real-world impact.

The day saw the 2026 Early Career Enterprise Fellowship (ECEF) awards presented to two winners from the 12 students participating who each presented the commercial applications of their research.

Emma Louca (Department of English, School of Humanities) was awarded the judges’ prize for her ‘Accessible Letterpress’ Project, which uses Lego-compatible 3D-printed type to make letterpress printing accessible to children and adults.

Designed as a portable activity kit, the project has already been used in schools and communities, helping spark conversations about literacy, print history, and creative making.

The audience prize went to Erdem Yildiz (School of Civil, Aerospace and Design Engineering) for his 4D morphing composite brace, a lightweight, breathable, and reusable alternative to traditional plaster casts.

Designed to reshape around the patient using heat, the technology offers a potentially more comfortable, cost-effective, and sustainable approach to personalised wearable supports.

The ECEF provided them both, along with the other Fellows, with structured support to help develop the commercial potential of their research.

This includes enterprise training, opportunities to refine the value proposition and route to impact, access to advice and mentoring within the University’s innovation ecosystem and connections with clinical, manufacturing, and commercial partners.