The 2026 NovaUCD Student Enterprise Competition, an intensive four-week accelerator programme for student entrepreneurs at University College Dublin (UCD), has kicked-off with 18 participating students and 14 early-stage ventures.

The participating ventures are focused on a wide range of business ideas ranging from agtech to robotics to sustainability and fast fashion to virtual reality.

A €3,000 NovaUCD One to Watch Prize is available to the overall winning venture at the end of this year’s competition.

Develop and grow business ideas into startups

The accelerator programme, which is now in its 12th year is delivered by NovaUCD, the university’s hub of startup and innovation activities, as a framework to support UCD undergraduate and postgraduate students who want to develop and grow business ideas into startups.

The aim of the accelerator is to assist the students in refining their business ideas through a series of structured workshops, including taught content from industry experts, interactive workshops, regular mentoring and pitching sessions.

Caroline Gill, innovation pathway manager at NovaUCD who manages the competition, said: “Over the next four weeks we will be supporting the students as they start the process of accelerating their business ideas into emerging startups. A key objective of this annual accelerator is to provide the students with skills, confidence, and opportunity to further develop their ideas and hopefully in time launch successful startups.”

Pictured at NovaUCD in Dublin are participating students in the 2026 NovaUCD Student Enterprise Competition with Caroline Gill, innovation pathway manager, NovaUCD (at far left) with Snowlin Soris and Raomal Perera, lean disruptor (at far right). Image: Vincent Hoban, UCD.

The four-week accelerator, which uses the Lean Startup and Business Model Canvas approach, includes a series of structured and interactive workshops delivered by Raomal Perera, lean disruptor. Topics such as, customer development; value proposition; working in teams; design thinking; prototyping, environment mapping; financial planning; effective fundraising and pitching, will be covered.

At a final workshop, to be held in late June, the participating ventures will pitch to a judging panel of investors. Based on the evaluation of the presentations an overall winner will be selected and will receive the €3,000 NovaUCD One to Watch Prize.

Ten postgraduate and eight undergraduate students are participating on this year’s accelerator programme.

More than 90 early-stage ventures and a total of 220 students have completed NovaUCD Student Enterprise Competitions to date.