One of the biggest complaints that both students and businesses have about education in the life sciences is that it does little to prepare young scientists for jobs in industry. A new programme based in Britain is now working to change that.

Developed by the South Yorkshire Bioscience Enterprise Network and funded by the European Commission and regional development agencies, the bio2work programme is a course in which graduate and postgraduate students create business and technical plans during their studies. It aims to take students with good scientific backgrounds and help them gain the commercial experience they need to hit the ground running in industry.

The eight-week summer workshop at the heart of bio2work acts as a bridge between academic and industrial science. It features speakers from local companies as well as site visits. It shows how basic research practices can synch with industrial lab standards, and teaches the students intellectual-property law and finance. It also helps the students to transfer soft skills, such as communication and information management, from the academic bench into an industrial setting.

Last week, four students from the bio2work's first intake at Sheffield Hallam University showed that they had taken a step towards gaining the necessary background. The four — Anna Parker, Katie Lidster, Ruth Austin and Rhianna Moss — won the network's inaugural student business-plan competition.

But the award that all the graduates of bio2work await most eagerly is a job in the life-sciences industry. The programme provides a 50% wage subsidy to partner companies who hire its graduates. The real success of the course will come when local businesses hire this next generation of life-science entrepreneurs — and when such programmes become the norm, not the exception, in life-science education.