Winning a Times Higher award has given a "real boost" to two of last year's recipients.

In the months since winning the award for Outstanding Support for Students with Disabilities, the Manchester 51¹ú²úÊÓƵ staff behind the website have had positive publicity and invitations to speak in public.

Chris Hughes, who manages the Disability Toolkits service at Manchester's Leadership Programme, Careers and Employability Division, said: "Winning The Times Higher award last year gave our team a real boost.

"It drew a great deal of positive publicity nationally and helped us to raise the awareness of the service to students, graduate recruiters and higher education careers and disability services.'

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The company Syrinix, which won last year's Business Initiative of the Year, had seen a clear benefit to business, according to founder Paul Linford.

Mr Linford said that The Times Higher award had helped boost sales and he said that the fact that Sir Richard Branson had judged the category had proved useful to them.

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"He said some nice things about us, which we have made use of - it is a good icebreaker when somebody doesn't know us."