CORA Funding and Awards
Details of funding and awards that have been received by CORA.
Funding
Funding was received in 2007 from the prestigious Royal Society Brian Mercer Award to help bring the technology to market and the University of Surrey raised internal finance to build a pilot scale desalination plant on site at its Guildford campus. The subsequent success and performance of the pilot plant led to the formation of Surrey Aqua Technology Ltd in November 2006 and investment from University Venture Capital specialist company IP Group.
Awards
Prof Adel Sharif receiving the Brian Mercer Award for Innovation in 2005 from Sir David Wallace, Treasurer and Vice President of the Royal Society
In 2007 Prof Adel Sharif was awarded the Muslim News UK award for excellence in Science and Technology.
Prof Adel Sharif, the founder of Surrey Aqua Technology Ltd was named as a winner of the inaugural ACES, the Academic Enterprise Awards in 2008, at a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden. The award is in recognition of his achievements in developing water purification and desalination technologies. A link to the 2008 Award Ceremony can be viewed here. and the 2009 Award Ceremony can be viewed here.
CORA received the EPSRC Knowledge Transfer Challenge Award for its plans to transfer the results of its research and training to help improve conditions in water stressed region of the world in 2008.
Modern Water was the winner of the AIM Sustainability Award in 2009.
Prof Adel Sharif receiving the IChemE 2011 Top Water Award
Additionally, recently the MO desalination technology has scored 8.9 at the Desalination Technologies ‘Coefficient of Desalination Reality’ scores in an independent study, by the Global Water Intelligence, and published in the Water Desalination Report (WDR, 44, Nov.2010). The score is the highest of all new technologies in the sector.
The desalination and water purification work developed by Professor Adel Sharif and his Team has been awarded the top prize in the Water Management and Supply category at this year’s IChemE awards. CORA invented desalination technology won the award in the category which recognises the best project or process to demonstrate innovation in water use, clean-up and re-use, with a particular emphasis on reducing environmental impact while preserving commercial viability. Professor Adel Sharif was presented with the award at the ceremony in Birmingham on 3rd November 2011.
In 2012 joint winners of the Queen's Award for wide-ranging and global work improving access to safe drinking water and sanitation.
