Students at the Life Sciences UTC and Studio School work with an amazing range of Industry Partners. This means that students are lucky enough to work on challenges created by experts in their field to build the technical and employability skills that will help them to achieve their dream careers. Year 9 and 10 students are currently working on a number of challenges set by Unilever.

Students have been working on one of the following challenges set by Unilever.

TECHNICAL CHALLENGE – Hygiene product.

Design and develop a product that provides a hygienic benefit naturally. Consideration of the effectiveness of hygiene control (such as anti-microbial action) and how to deliver this in the most natural or sustainable way is key.

ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGE – Planet positive.

Design and develop a consumer product (personal care or home care) which is both beneficial to the person and environment, helping  to maintain the nature which has flourished/ regrown during lockdown.

SOCIAL CHALLENGE – Promote wellbeing.

Design and develop a personal or home care product that would promote mental health and well-being.

In designing their product, the students have to consider various aspects of Unilever’s business, such as formulation, scale-up, packaging, digital R&D, consumer technical insight. They have already started coming up with some great ideas and will present their project work to us in February. We will then select an internal winner to enter the Unilever regional competition.

Katie in Year 9 says, “The best thing about the Unilever Inspire project has been experimenting and using my imagination.”

Katie has had a go at making her product at home, which is an eco-friendly lip balm made from soya wax. This was not a compulsory part of the task, we are so impressed that Katie has made her idea a reality at home.

UTC Lab Manager, Sarah-Jane Linkman says, “The Unilever Inspire project is always a great opportunity for the students involved as they can experience the production of a product from every angle. This is a wonderful challenge especially during our current circumstances, but the students are eager as always to do something new. While we are facing challenges, Unilever and All About STEM have been wonderful in providing support to make it as accessible as possible as online lessons.”