Export award for firm

SCIENTIFIC Update, a small business operating from Mayfield, has been awarded the Queen's Award for Enterprise.

With only eight employees, seven of whom are full time, the company has achieved an astonishing amount of exports over the last three years. They arrange conferences and events world wide on an extensive range of scientific subjects in a large number of countries 36 to date.

Dr Trevor Laird, who was delighted by the achievement, set up the company in 1989. He said: 'Thirteen years ago my wife and I started the business from a spare bedroom in our home. Now it is officially recognised as being among the very best of UK companies. It is an acknowledgement of the dedication of the small team of staff who have worked unstintingly to produce the demanding standards required to win the award.'

He added: 'It is also great for the whole village community, many of whom have helped and encouraged us along the way.'

The company was set up to provide continuing education and training for graduate and postgraduate chemists working in the pharmaceutical and fine chemical industries. Since 1989, the company has gone from strength to strength, organising training courses, conferences and providing consultancy for the worldwide chemical/pharmaceutical community. As a result of their hard work and dedication, they have been awarded the Queen's Award for Enterprise (International Trade) for 2002.

Dr Laird said he was especially pleased to have won the award, which had been earned against a sometimes difficult background of company mergers and diminishing budgets for technical training of scientists in industry.

Scientific Update has a mission to convince pharmaceutical companies of the importance of continuing education of scientific personnel. These are the people who produce the substances which are used in the medicines and drugs they make.