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These projects are a fantastic opportunity for students to gain experience of conducting research in the context of an industry-relevant challenge, and further develop the lab and analysis skills that they’re learning throughout their degrees. Here we take a look back at some of the projets that ran in 2025.
Notpla make biodegradable packaging utilising a sustainable bio-source: polymers extracted from seaweed. The company has gone from strength to strength, with a portfolio of products ranging from food packaging to laundry detergent sachets. They were also the winners of “Build a Waste-free World” EarthShot Prize in 2022.
To support ongoing product development, ECFP and Notpla teamed up to run a project investigating the relationship between the properties of a material and its processability. The student gained laboratory experience in a thermal analysis technique, differential scanning calorimetry, and at the end of the project, travelled down to Notpla’s labs in London to meet the team in person and give a presentation covering the project’s results.
Arda Biomaterials Ltd is a London-based start-up founded with the aim to make novel biomaterials from waste feedstocks. Their first innovation, New Grain, is a plastic- and animal-free leather alternative using brewers’ spent grain (BSG), a waste product of beer and whisky brewing naturally rich in protein. ECFP supervised two students to work on projects with the company over the summer. These projects focused on characterising the properties of the BSG protein solution and how it dries into the final product, giving crucial insight towards maximising the mechanical properties of Arda’s leather-like materials. As part of their work, the students learned a variety of different lab techniques, including infra-red spectroscopy, optical coherence tomography, and differential dynamic microscopy. Dr Dan Whitaker, Senior Polymer Chemist at Arda Biomaterials, co-supervised the students.
Hawk-Eye is well-known system used for video review officiating across a number of sports, including cricket where it has been in use since the early 2000s. The system is often used to track the trajectory of a ball, which in cricket is greatly influenced by the surface of the pitch being played on. Dr Dave Fairhurst and Dr Hrishikesh Pingulkar from ECFP supervised a student, Divyam, with Hawk-Eye who undertook a project that used data from international cricket games to investigate quantitative measures of the playing fields, and focused on understanding how the mechanical properties of the surface can be linked to game-relevant factors such as bounce height and deviation. Hawk-Eye are always on the lookout for new ways to present data to the public, enriching the viewer experience and providing insights to players and coaches and this project provided new analysis approaches.
Through the project, Divyam was able to develop their data analysis skills and created a set of graphics to share the project results with the Hawk-Eye team, as well as joining up with the team at an international match in Manchester. Divyam commented “Having played cricket for over 10 years across more than 80 grounds, I have always noticed how unique each pitch is. This project gave me the chance to turn those qualitative differences into quantitative answers, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Working with Hawk-Eye brought together two things I love – cricket and physics – and brought me to think about the sport in a new, analytical way, while also finding new perspectives on physics itself.”
ECFP also ran several projects with Mondelez, including one that explored the flow and spread of molten fluids, and a project with Syngenta on agrochemical formulations.
We would like to extend our thanks to all the students that joined us this summer for their hard work and to our industry partners for donating their time and experience to support the students as supervisors. If you might be interested in taking part in our 2026 summer project scheme, please get in touch!
Please get in contact with us to find out more about ECFP and whether we can help you.
