The 1851 Royal Commission reports that its Industrial Fellowships provide recent graduates with the means to develop innovative technology with commercial potential, ideally leading to a patent, while completing a PhD or EngD. According to the company, each Fellow receives up to £80,000 worth of funding over three years for their work, to be carried out in collaboration with an academic institution and a business partner.

Among the 10 new technologies awarded the 2015 Fellowship was a proposal for new materials to create cheaper solar cells, put forward by Harry Cronin of DZP Technologies and the University of Surrey.

Bernard Taylor, Chairman of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, said: “Britain is renowned for carrying out world leading research but often we have fallen behind in turning that expertise into commercial applications. These fellowships have been designed to identify research with potential to solve current problems in a commercially viable way.”
 
According to the 1851 Royal Commission, the company uses profits acquired from their first and most successful international trade fair to award a range of fellowships and grants in support of science and engineering research and industrial education across the UK. The company has previously funded luminaries such as Nobel laureates Professor Peter Higgs, Sir James Chadwick and Paul Dirac.