Timothy Barnes, of Ely, has been director of University College London’s Advances centre for entrepreneurship since it was launched in 2007.

He has played a key role in helping UCL Advances to secure more than £12m in funding for its activities from the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the European Union, Goldman Sachs, Santander and a variety of other sources.

Each year, UCL Advances offers more than 2,500 activity places to university students and supports more than 300 businesses, In total, Timothy has played a part in educating more than 10,000 students in entrepreneurship.

He said: “I am pleased and surprised to have received this award. It’s testament to the dedication and commitment of all of the 30 or so members of UCL Advances as well as the wider Enterprise team at UCL, who all work incredibly hard to support entrepreneurial students and staff.

Mr Barnes created the London Entrepreneurs’ Challenge, a programme to support UCL students who want to start businesses regardless of degree subject or background. It is now the longest running event of its type in the country.

He also founded Citrus Saturday, which encourages 11-13 year olds to engage in entrepreneurship, through providing them with the materials and supervision to set up a lemonade stand in their local community.

Having initially started in and around Camden, the programme now runs across the UK, Europe and Africa.

Paying tribute to his colleague, UCL professor Stephen Caddick said: “Tim has worked tirelessly over many years promoting enterprise as a key part of his role at UCL.

“He has been particularly active at promoting and supporting the London enterprise community. I am very proud that such a key member of UCL’s enterprise team has been recognised with this honour.”