3P

Rules

Eligibility

All fulltime students at all levels of education and from any department, registered with the University of Coventry for the year 2005/2006 are eligible to enter. This includes visiting and exchange students. The only exception to this rule is the President of Coventry University Entrepreneurs who may not enter any competition during his tenure as president. There are no restrictions for all other CUE committee members or organisers, as they will not have access to confidential information regarding the competition.

Other people that do not meet this requirement may join or form teams, provided that at least one of the principal entrants on the team meet the requirement described above. It is understood that the winning team would, upon incorporation, have at least one entrant described above as a board director.

Competitors are encouraged to seek the involvement of faculty members, alumni, post docs, researchers and other staff. Multidisciplinary teams are seen to do best but there are, however, no restrictions on the composition of your wider competition team.

Teams that have already secured arrangements for capital from any source must disclose the amounts and sources clearly in their entries. (For example, generating cash from sales revenues or contracts, research grants, personal/family funds). Ideas that have received outside investment from venture capital firms, private investors or industry sources before the finalist are announced, will be automatically disqualified.

Entry fee

Entry fee for 3P competitions are £20 per business plan entry. Teams with multiple business plan entries will be charged multiple entry fees. A particular idea may enter either of the CUEBiC and 3P competitions but not both. A cheque payable to ‘Coventry University Entrepreneurs’ (or cash payment) should be included in the first round of submission materials. Failure of fee payment on time will result in rejection of the entry.

Payments are valid only for competitions in 2005/6 and are not transferable to future CUE competitions.

Content

All entries must be the original work of the entrants.

Entries should be made with full understanding of University regulations on Intellectual Property Rights. It is the responsibility of the Entrant to ensure that no third party (such a research sponsor or another member of the University who participated in your research) has any rights in your idea which might prevent your exploiting it. Do not disclose any proprietary information about your idea on the Entry Form, as this information will be published.

It is recommended that entrants obtain a letter from the appropriate person within their department e.g. the Head of Research or Supervisor, confirming they know a business plan has been submitted in relation to your idea.

Entrants for the ‘3P Competition’ Competition need to clearly demonstrate the social and environmental purpose of their venture, in addition to many of the traditional business plan headings.

Executive Summary Submission

ALL submissions must be made in paper in sealed envelopes. Online submissions will not be accepted.

Deadline: 5pm on 12th December 2005.You are advised to arrive before 4:50pm.

Venue: Paper submissions must be made in full, in person at the address below:

Coventry Enterprise
10 Trumpington Street, Coventry CB2 1QA
Tel: 01223 760339

Documents required for EACH business plan entry:

• 12 copies of Executive Summary with no more than 1500 words (including appendix)
• 1 cheque of £20, payable to ‘Coventry University Entrepreneurs’
• 1 Entry Pack given in section 6 of this hand book

Public summary

A public summary of no more than 100 words will be required as part of the Entry Pack. It will be used for circulation for press releases and CUE competition publications.

Penalties:

Competition entries will be processed in the order in which they are received. Participants are advised to complete all the documents before arriving at Coventry Enterprise. No entries will be accepted after 5pm on 12th December 2005.
Participants are required to provide an accurate word count of their Executive Summary and the Public Summary submitted in the Entry Pack. Anything beyond the 1500 word limit for the Executive Summary and the 100 word limit for the Public Summary will be disregarded.
Incomplete submissions with missing documents, incomplete fields or missing signatures will be rejected.
If an insufficient number of copies or uncollated papers are submitted, this will not be rectified and as a result will not be sent to the judges.

Full Business Plan Submission

Only finalists announced at the Qualifier’s Dinner in January 2006 will be required to submit 12 copies of a full Business Plan.
The full Business Plan should be no more than 40 pages, including all text, graphics and appendices. Finalists will be required to provide a page count. Any pages exceeding the limit will be disregarded by the judges.
ALL submission must be made in paper in sealed envelopes, except the poster required electronically for exhibition purposes.
Deadline: 5pm on 20th March 2006.You are advised to arrive before 4:50pm. Entries submitted after this time will not be accepted.