Michael Leung designed an “ergonomic seat” that was highly commended at the Design Innovation in Plastics competition

Michael Leung is presented with his certificate by Dr Colin Church — Michael Leung being presented with his certificate by Dr Colin Church

A student from Enfield has been recognised by a national awards scheme after designing an innovative solution for people with back pain.

Michael MH Leung, a student at Brunel University, was ‘highly commended’ by the 2025 Design Innovation in Plastics competition for his product ‘UE:1 Seat – Ultra Ergo’, an “ergonomic rocking seat which serves as both a support system and a muscle activator, helping to ease movement and enhance comfort”.

The product is designed to help people rehabilitating from back pain.

DIP is the longest running plastics design competition of its kind for university undergraduates in Europe, supported by The Worshipful Company of Horners, the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) and headline sponsored by polymers manufacturer, Covestro.

This year’s contestants were answering a brief to design a product for health and wellbeing, to support the self-care agenda. Michael’s inspiration for his product was driven by his own love and passion for design, as well as his own personal experience, and said the competition had given him a new point of view of material innovation.

Judges chair Richard Brown said: “This was a product to support correct posture for people with back problems and was driven by Michael’s personal experience. It was a strong concept which took the novel approach of using packaging strapping for the suspension seat.

“It focused well on sustainability and reuse of materials although it needed a little more examination of the available materials and methods of manufacture, to ensure feasibility and efficiency of design.”

Commenting on this year’s finalists, Richard added: “The standard was so high that there were very fine margins between the final positions, and we would suggest that a number of products are good enough to be commercialised.”

The overall competition winner was Harry Wragg, from De Montfort University, who created a new device for helping people perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

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