University of the West of England

UWE Bristol has a strong track record in delivering enterprise and supporting students to explore an idea and start-up. We run a range of curricular and extra curricular interventions, and through the university-wide  Enterprise 2020 project, Enterprise and Entrepreneurship education has become a strategic priority for UWE through which we are working towards a goal that ALL students will build and develop enterprise skills to support employment, further study and/or business start-up.

UWE’s Enterprise Skills Team is part of a wider Employability and Enterprise Team enabling critical alignment across employability, enterprise and entrepreneurship. The team enables students to develop the skills that employers are looking for, and helps them turn great ideas into successful businesses.  A range of events, workshops, and support programmes runs throughout the year, including:

Be Your Own Boss workshops

Our series of 10 start-up workshops run in both first and second term. The workshops are intended to assist students in developing commercial awareness and provide them with the skills necessary to run their own business.

Challenges

Setting a range of challenges for students throughout the year, to grow confidence, solve problems, build skills and have fun!

Start-up Drinks Networking

Building  their network and hearing from  local entrepreneurs’ start-up experiences is crucial for students considering an entrepreneurial career. We’ve partnered with the University of Bristol to bring those with an interest in start-up together and share stories from Alumni as well as one-minute promotional pitches from audience members.

Pop-Up Shops

UWE supports student start-up through our own internal Pop-Up shop programme. Running throughout term-time, it’s an ideal opportunity for students to test out ideas in a retail environment.

Support for entrepreneurs

We offer funding opportunities, events, programmes, competitions, summer internships, and placements to help students  experiment with an idea or set up their own business.

Support for enterprise societies

We actively support Enactus, UWE Entrepreneurs, and the Marketing societies. Each of these run a range of events and activities and have many leadership opportunities available.

We also support graduates through our new incubator, Launchspace  

Located in the new £16m University Enterprise Zone on Frenchay Campus, Launch Space provides physical incubator space and support for graduate start-up businesses, from any UK university.

Enterprise in the curriculum

We have workshops seminars and models operating across the university, as well as an innovative dedicated programmes within Bristol Business School: BA Team Entrepreneurship and a Masters in Entrepreneurship and Innovation and a PG Cert in Enterprise.

UWE Bristol also works pre-actively with various national and international partners to share best practice, such as Unltd/HEFCE, the British Council and the Al Hadi group.

Main contact: Mhairi Threlfall, Student Enterprise Advisor