A GROUP of students from Lancaster University Management School have set up their own company to create a virtual community for fellow students.

They have launched a website aiming to help fellow students to communicate more effectively with one another.

It includes chat forums, a photo gallery, a directory of local businesses, events information, jobs, classified ads and information on colleges and societies.

The site at Linkaster.com also gives advertisers and corporate sponsors the opportunity to market their products or services to students across Lancaster.

"The emphasis is that it has been created for by students for students," says third year business studies student Clemens Friedrich, the brains behind the idea "Already more than 1,500 members are signed up and we are signing up more on a daily basis."

Mr Friedrich set up the site with friends Christopher Wong, Fredrik Weibull, Erik Jennefelt and Peter Price all in their final year at Lancaster and all partners in the company.

Linkaster.com had start up support and business advice from the university's Knowledge Business Centre and operates from a virtual office environment in InfoLab21, the new £15m building at the university built with funding from the Northwest Development Agency) and European Regional Development Fund.

Mr Friedrich says: "We have had an amazing service from the Knowledge Business Centre. It would have been impossible to set up in business without the advice and a marketing grant."

He says that already the website is looking at the possibility of expanding to other campuses, and adds: "We want to keep the spirit of by students for students' and make it available more widely."

Business Centre director Steve Riches says: "We are delighted that we were able to work with students in this way so early in the centre's development and now look forward to helping more student businesses develop."