Royal High alumna receives UK Women in Innovation Award Winner 2025
Senior School, Alumnae, Talks
On 10th June, we were delighted to welcome Royal High alumna, Jane Pearce, back to school to receive the prestigious Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award 2025 and unveil a purple plaque in her honour.
Jane Pearce is part of a network of over 200 Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award winners who are developing inspiring solutions to pressing societal, environmental, and economic challenges; from multi-grip bionic arms for amputees, an AI that curbs your unhealthy cravings, and satellite data to detect long-lost archaeological sites. Purple plaques are being displayed at schools across the country to recognise the achievements of the winners.
Jane came to talk to our girls about her innovation project that revolutionises the way we use phosphate through its safe removal from problem areas, enabling its reuse on land where it is needed. This innovation creates a circular solution that reduces the impact of imported, mined phosphate on the planet for a more sustainable future. Jane's achievements include securing a 2023 Innovate UK Smart Grant to develop an innovative container system for water treatment sites. This technology promises to revolutionise how treatment facilities handle phosphate recovery and reuse.
Jane was recently featured on the BBC’s Country File and has been nominated for The Earth Shot Prize, founded by Prince William, which aims to find game-changing innovations that will repair our planet.
Jane said: “I’m honoured and excited to be receiving the Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award at my old school, Royal High Bath. I remember my time there fondly and it was a real pleasure to come back to the school to talk to the students about my innovation project and to help inspire the next female innovators.”
Our Sustainability prefects in Sixth Form expressed how much they enjoyed Jane’s talk. Holly Morris said: “It was a very interesting talk. Jane is not just an amazing inventor, but also an amazing entrepreneur and businesswoman.” And Amy Lapraik, commented; “It was brilliant to see how things we learn in school can be fixed in the real world.”
Heidi-Jayne Boyes, Head at Royal High, said: “We feel privileged to welcome Jane back to Royal High to receive the UK award for Women in Innovation and recognise her achievements in building a successful start-up. At Royal High we strive to embrace tomorrow’s world through innovative and creative thinking, equipping students with the skills, confidence and compassion to live a life unlimited. Jane's award is a fascinating and inspiring example for our girls of what you can achieve with hard work and resilience. We are excited to follow Jane's journey to see her future successes.”
We will be putting the purple plaque up on a wall outside the Science block shortly to commemorate Jane’s achievements and we wish Jane every success in her future career.
