ALT Yusuf Mohammad,the co-founder of Plumis, a London-based company manufacturing fire-safety devices, received funding from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 for a two-year course in innovation design engineering. He went on to found Plumis in 2008. It now employs 40 people.

ALT Among the people who have a good reason to thank the organisation is Lewis Hornby, founder of Jelly Drops, a company making water-rich sweets that combat the dehydration suffered by many old people that can seriously affect their health. Hornby gained a £50,000 grant that enabled him to embark on the same two-year course that Muhammad had taken, based at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College in London. Jelly Drops emerged from a technical project in his final year – on which his grandmother was an adviser, testing many of the prototypes.

ALT Daire O'Dubhthaigh, 25, a supply chain engineer at Interface, a US-based flooring manufacturer, is doing a PhD with commission funding at Queen's University Belfast, while continuing in his job at an Interface plant in Craigavon. His industrial fellowship could amount to around £100,000 over three years.

ALT Marta Ferran-Marqués, a materials specialist from Spain doing a commission-funded PhD in manufacturing engineering at Cranfield University, who wants to become an astronaut.