UCL Life Sciences students winners in this year’s Student COVID-19 Recovery Challenge

A team of Life Science students has won a competition that called for innovative ideas from UCL students to solve issues caused by the pandemic.

The COVID-19 Recovery Challenge was launched by the UCL Faculty of Medical Sciences during lockdown, as a way to help students develop the enterprise skills increasingly demanded by employers, as well as building their resilience during the pandemic. 255 students took part, coming up with 34 inspiring ideas. The brief called for innovative applications deliverable within six months, with a budget of £50,000. The winning team, made up of four first-year Life Science students, came up with the idea of recyclable PPE, addressing the dual issue of PPE shortage and the pollution caused by PPE going to landfill. The judges felt the idea was “feasible, sustainable and would have a significant impact”. Priyanka Rachel Peres, who is in the first year of her Biological Sciences degree at UCL, said: “The pandemic had exposed so many problems in the world. [We] wanted to contribute somehow, to make a positive impact. We were really happy when the competition came along as we could use our degrees and our connection with the university to do something positive in such a dark time.” The competition has been a chance for students to connect with experts at UCL who are responding to the issues created by COVID-19, and come up with their own solutions.

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