Middlesex: Barnet Micro-Business Growth Programme
Middlesex University partnered with Barnet Council to provide a unique programme of short training courses, specifically designed to support the growth and development of local micro-businesses. Ten short courses were designed and delivered to provide businesses with the tools, knowledge and confidence to grow, and over 50 unique businesses benefited from the co-designed programme convened at Middlesex University. Following their attendance, 20 businesses are being allocated an MDX student/graduate intern, who will shortly start working on helping them implement growth strategies. Dr Chris Moon, fellow of Enterprise Educators UK, delivered workshops on Entrepreneurship and Sustainability as part of the programme.

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Napier: ‘Innovative online learning in entrepreneurship Education’,
This publication explores how educational scaffolding can facilitate the delivery of online experiential activities to improve the entrepreneurial learning experience and the performance of music management students by using information and communications technology tools within the virtual learning environment. A case study methodology was adopted to present two scenarios of innovative online learning delivered in a postgraduate programme in music management. The findings show that, by strengthening industry links, tutors can build a portfolio of online practical activities that represent the ‘real-life’ industry, helping to forge long-term, collaborative partnerships to facilitate learners’ acquisition of more meaningful knowledge and opportunities. Read more.

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Robert Gordon University: Innovation Award gives student the edge
Imagination is key to using innovation to help solve problems. Using imagination and the innovative meta skills acquired through the RGU Innovation award, Azibaolanari Okungbowa a RGU postgraduate Procurement and Supply Chain Management student, determined how Big Data Analytics can be deployed to help solve the problems of climate change, especially within supply chain. Big Data Analytics is vital to reducing scope 3 emissions, thus the topic “The Contribution Of Big Data Analytics In Reducing Scope 3 Emissions” emerged. This research was used in a CIPS global symposium competition in the UK, with Azibaolanari emerging top 6 amongst other finalists.

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BCU: The STEAMhouse Pre-Incubator
Within the Pre-Incubator is a suite of a programmes designed to build knowledge, confidence, and networks, and equip participants with the attributes every entrepreneur needs with one programme. This is referring to our STEAMhouse Hatchery Programme, which is a ten-week boot camp where eligible participants create and cultivate a business plan with the help of expert mentors from all aspects of business, workshops, access to great facilities and taught sessions. The finalists receive a cash prize, a space in our Pre-Incubator and a furnished business plan that they can use to launch their venture.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWHNHOmdw2

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Glasgow: Adam Smith Business School leads on £1.2m project to develop data-driven entrepreneurship
The Business School is leading a new €1.2m project to develop data-driven entrepreneurship across a consortium of EU universities.The work aims to develop partner Universities entrepreneurship capacity, increase the volume of student and staff start-ups, and upskill roles that support innovation and commercialisation. The work will cover everything from agri-tech and the space sector, through to precision medicine and fintech. Partners include Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Corvinus University in Budapest and industry partners such as Stac.ac, Fintech Scotland, ARM Advanced RISC Machines, Barclays Eagle Labs and Censis

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Bristol: SETsquared Bristol’s Enterprising Women 3.0
Applications are now open for SETsquared Bristol’s Enterprising Women 3.0 – a supportive and inclusive business support programme, fully funded by NatWest, to help women take their business or idea to the next stage. You’ll benefit from SETsquared Bristol’s world-class business support and a valuable network to connect with. All costs for the programme are covered, apart from your own expenses. The opportunity is open to tech and non-tech businesses/ideas. Apply by 8 December

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Two UCL startups have been selected for prestigious Techstars Accelerator programmes, which provide investment opportunities for early-stage entrepreneurs.Startups BoxxDocks and Charter have secured coveted spots on the London and Space programmes respectively. Read more here.

I need time to think

It’s very difficult to step away from the frenetic pace of HE teaching and attend a writing retreat. It almost appears anachronistic when anyone dares to say, ‘I need time to think.’ It’s ridiculous really when this is exactly what we should be having space to do regularly. 

Write, write, write

That aside, I cannot recommend a writing retreat opportunity more highly. The ISBE, EEUK REntEd SIG received funds to set up such an experience at the Edgbaston Park Hotel and Conference Centre within the University of Birmingham during October 2022. The Enterprise Eleven (+1) convened and dedicated two full days to writing. Enterprise and Entrepreneurial practitioners sat in the Grafton building, a warm Arts and Crafts inspired location on campus and pledged their troth to achieve tangible outputs from their ’write, write, write’ sessions.

We all welcome creative and constructive conversations

It was daunting, yes but what was specifically interesting from my perspective was the gender balance. It was 11:1 in favour of women and it created a supportive, humble, and highly professional tenor. There was an extraordinary array of talent and experience around the table that enabled constructive and creative conversations alongside peer mentoring at every stage of the process.

Accountability is everything

It also helped that the accommodation further highlighted the special nature of the retreat and offered space for reflection and plenty of frenetic typing and revisions. Having committed to specific goals that were revisited at the end of the event it felt managed and accountable. Consequently, every delegate, in the main, achieved their aim or were in touching distance at least.

We wrote and watched prime ministers come and go

The opportunity to discuss and chat generally about our institutions, research ambitions, the state of entrepreneurship, the resignation of the prime minster and all points between was a chance to share and create potential future collaborations.

There’s always time to explore entrepreneur education

Certainly, it was a chance to be amongst like-minded individuals that were all delighted to share tips and tricks, observations, and suggestions. I sincerely believe that everyone benefitted, friendships were rekindled and created too. It was also fascinating to reach into other professional lives and begin to understand some aspects of the varied and important work that is being carried out in this field under the guide of entrepreneur education.

To step away and draw breath should not be underestimated

To have the physical and headspace opportunity to write up and think carefully about projects and ideas cannot be underestimated. I know the organisers could see how successful the event was and how fruitful potential collaborations might be. The size of the group was intimate enough but allowed for discussion across fields These included factors that affect high growth companies; how professional modules can be further integrated and embedded into undergraduate provision; refugee remorse as a factor stifling progression; research collaborations and the impact of micro internships on paid work opportunities. This is just a snapshot of the research work output.

It is a significant investment of time, energy, resource, and brain power

Yet, if you can take the opportunity to attend a writing retreat, especially one organised by UKEE and ISBE, I would fight tooth and nail for the chance to attend.  Like any boot camp, things happen, perspectives change, goals are set and most importantly are achieved.  Having a couple of days to talk to other professionals working within enterprise education is also motivational and collegiate. Honestly, such an enterprise is highly recommended, and I thank Dr Emily Beaumont, Dr Breda O Dwyer organisers for their foresight and enthusiasm.

Vivienne Neale lectures in Entrepreneurship on the MSc Programme at Falmouth University.

Sussex: Startup Cycle’ 

Students at the University of Sussex took part in a sustainability-themed ‘Startup Cycle’ tour of Brighton’s business community.  The group, including participants from the university’s accelerator programme, travelled the city by bike and foot to hear from startup founders and see inside work spaces. Their stops included a guided tour of co-working space PLATF9RM with founder talks, and a trip to ethical supermarket HISBE Food. This year Sussex extends its provision for social entrepreneurs, partnering with University of California Berkeley to offer social impact contest Big Ideas, supported by a new early stage programme, Ideas Lab.

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Keele: EEUK Associate Awarded Honorary Doctorate

Georgian Technical University are celebrating their 100^th birthday and the academic council have awarded Dr Colin Rigby an honorary doctorate for the introduction of enterprise to their education and also a visiting Professor role.  Colin commented in his acceptance speech “This is one of the greatest honours of my professional career so far, I am very much looking forward to taking up my role as a visiting professor. This is the beginning of our journey and I look forward to the continuation of our amazing team here at GTU particularly after successfully gaining EEUK membership through Creative Flame”.  

 

 

 

 

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Manchester: Development of a Data Warehouse for the Assessment of Entrepreneurship Education and Venture Creation
Colleagues from The University of Manchester presented their work at the British Academy of Management Conference on “Development of a Data Warehouse for the Assessment of Entrepreneurship Education and Venture Creation” Papadopoulou, K.A., Phillips, R.A., Salder, J., Salehi, F. Measuring the success of entrepreneurship education (EE) is complex. Metrics used are varied, students may be from any school and had varying interaction with EE making any meaningful tracking difficult. A data warehouse is proposed to collate information from a variety of sources in an organised manner to allow educators to identify effectiveness and how EE may be measured. Read the full article here.

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Bristol: Breakthrough Bursary

Calling all UK tech entrepreneurs from a minority ethnic background – take your business to the next level! Apply for SETsquared Bristol’s Breakthrough Bursary to access heavily discounted business support. SETsquared’s incubation programme can help early-stage startups with market readiness or help existing businesses to scale and raise investment. If you want help to grow your business and make an impact in the world, apply by 7 November.

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KCL: New Ventures and Innovators join King’s Accelerators

The Entrepreneurship Institute has welcomed 20 of the brightest and highest potential ventures from across King’s College London onto its King’s20 Accelerator. Cohort VII will participate in an intensive programme to accelerate their first stage of growth, with access to leading expert mentorship, investment opportunities, coaching and the chance to develop the 7 skills of an Entrepreneurial Mindset to aid their success. Eight innovators will also start their 12-month journey on the Innovator at King’s Accelerator. The second cohort of eight innovators are companies that have been developed from King’s research, founded by researchers and PhD students.

King’s20: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/meet-the-ventures-kings20-2022-23

Innovators: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/meet-the-innovators-at-kings-cohort-2

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The Weave Brings Social Innovation to its Region.
Most businesses are stuck solving today’s problems and addressing the current needs of society. Rarely do they have the energy or time to engage with a future yet to be imagined and wholly unknown. That is why we designed and delivering the North Essex Social Impact Hackathon from the 18^th to the 20^th of November. The event brings the region’s universities and small businesses together to collaborate and develop social innovation. The best ideas have the opportunity to access a £20k fund where dreams can become a reality. More details herehttps://wearetheweave.co.uk/socialimpacthackathon

 

This blog post shares insights from the work carried out by Westminster Enterprise Network, at the University of Westminster and does not intend to reflect the experience of all Student Enterprise teams and may not be directly applicable to all HEIs.

Author: Zsofia Kunvari, Enterprise Education Officer, University of Westminster

Enterprise teams sit far and wide within universities but whether they’re attached to Research & Knowledge Exchange, Careers & Employability, or other directorates, one problem often remains: How to bridge the gap between extra-curricular Enterprise activities delivered by Professional Services and the curricular provision delivered by Academic colleagues?

Academic Engagement as an area of activity within Student Enterprise – as well as a job title for a growing number of enterprise team members – covers the challenging task of aligning interests within and outside the curriculum.

My role as an Enterprise Education Officer, focusing on Academic Engagement, started 10 months ago as a brand-new role in my team, without a specific blueprint for how to do it. In this blog, I am hoping to shine a light on some of the challenges and wins that arose from committing to improving communication and collaboration between stakeholders across the extracurricular and curricular provision.

Whether having a dedicated team member responsible for this work or just embracing it as a shared team objective, investing resources into Academic Engagement can achieve three practical outcomes for your Enterprise team.

Better internal communications to generate more collaborations

Efficient communication between Student Enterprise teams and Academic colleagues is often challenging to achieve because of a lack of understanding about which strategies yield the best results. Starting by researching which communication channels for staff are available, understanding which of these channels are Academic colleagues engaging with the most and developing targeted strategies to communicate more regularly and more accurately with them.

Identifying problem-solution fit to address institutional targets collaboratively

By investing time speaking with Academics to understand which precise challenges they face in teaching, student experience and graduate outcomes, embedding enterprise and employability, or other relevant aspect of their work, this will inform the development of targeted interventions which your team can co-create with Academics to address these specific challenges.

Making Enterprise Education accessible without barriers to entry

With a greater than ever emphasis on engaging a majority of students in Enterprise activities, including hard to reach groups, embedding enterprise in the curriculum means giving exposure to all students enrolled on specific modules or courses, instead of relying on the availability and interest of a select few in the context of an extra-curricular provision.

At Westminster Enterprise Network, we used these three desired outcomes to guide the design and development of valuable and long-lasting collaborations between our team and Academic colleagues. We designed of our engagement workflow by strategically positioning the curricular experience as the first engagement in a linear step-by-step journey. The in-classroom experiences designed and delivered collaboratively with Academics, are well thought-through with relevant assessments, as well as the impact on student experience and graduate outcomes in mind. We are aiming to put the students in a good position to enrol into the rest of the extra-curricular activities our team offer to further develop and test their projects.

Our most recent developments include:

Tackling communication channels from the get-go

To circumvent the problem of mass and last-minute emailing, as well as relying on social media promotions, we recognised that we needed a more concerted effort in sharing our content where academic colleagues gathered information from. This included for our team, designing documents in the preferred format for Academic colleagues and presenting edited information to create an intuitive user journey without information overload.

Focusing on Live Employer Briefs as one effective and scalable intervention

Our team acts as an intermediate between industry and employer contacts and Academics to develop bespoke briefs for modules which support authentic assessments. Live briefs are presenting a real-world problem faced by an employer and presented to the students for them to produce a response. The briefs are selected to match the content of modules. Academic colleagues are responsible for designing the assessment, but the brief content is brought on by the employer with the opportunity for students to engage with the employer in a pre-brief Q&A.

With this approach, students get to use entrepreneurial skills (problem-solving, research, communication, leadership, pitching an idea…) in an accessible setting. The students can then decide to pursue entrepreneurship further having had a bitesize experience of the skills and mindset that may be required to develop their own project. In the first trial Semester, we are delivering five Live Briefs (fully or partially embedded in a course) with eight external employers involved to benefit over 200 students overall.

A hackathon to transform coursework into entrepreneurial projects

Built over several years’ iterations, our team is introducing a new large-scale extracurricular event that brings together in-class learning, employability, and a package of funding opportunities available to develop projects. Instead of students having to choose carefully between investing time in extracurricular Enterprise activities and staying on top of their studies and assessments, students will now be able to bring their coursework project into the hackathon to further develop it. In designing this new hackathon, the main objective was to reduce the time commitment we asked of students by designing a bridge event where they could take their existing coursework project and with our team’s support could turn it into an entrepreneurial project in receipt of pre-seed funding to encourage their first steps. After the hackathon, the students would access the rest of the support services on offer.

What we have learnt so far:

Trial, error, and iterations

Not everyone communicates the same way and when a university is so diverse in its offering, so are the problems and potential solutions. Sometimes the response we get is a hard no, and that is okay. You might be surprised to see that if you don’t give up but go back with a different offer, it might turn into a resounding yes. We keep good records of communications and contacts (CRM is a reliable companion) and we iterate our pitch as we go along. What we keep in mind are the overall strategic objectives our team have been set. Not all asks can be addressed straight away, and sometimes collaborations can be parked temporarily until the timing is right. Diligently gathering insights from conversations with Academic colleagues may just be the best way to tackle institutional targets more effectively by bringing a wider pool of colleagues and services to work together.

Be hungry for feedback and evaluate impact

Our team now knows the best platforms where to engage with Academic colleagues and how to collaborate to offer their students a first experience of Enterprise in the curriculum. In my role, I experienced the benefits of building closer work relationships with Academic colleagues, and we have already seen that our collaborative approach appeals. I make a point of regularly engaging with colleagues to ensure I am in the know about how our team can best contribute to enhance their course experience. Alongside this work, we are building a robust feedback and evaluation framework to capture the short term and longer-term impact of this Academic Engagement work through event feedback questionnaires, as well as measuring how these interventions affect the student experience and graduate outcome results.

With this blog, I wanted to share our team’s experience and what we learnt along the way. There is no doubt that Academic Engagement and embedding Enterprise in the curriculum ultimately leads to engaging with a larger proportion of students and removes some of the common barriers. Aligning Academic Engagement interventions with the extra-curricular offer creates a valuable loop which increases overall engagement levels and avoids delivering activities in a vacuum where opportunities to seamlessly guide students to further support are missed.

I write this blog more than a week since the International Enterprise Educators Conference 2022 at Swansea University and I’m still buzzing from the experience!  Being face to face with enterprise and entrepreneurship educators from around the world, connecting and supporting each other to enable excellence is a positively energising experience.

There were many highlights to IEEC2022; the venue, the inspiring keynotes, the range of tracks covering every aspect of enterprise and entrepreneurship education, and how could I forget Alison Price’s policy update, but for me, it was making new, and renewing existing connections.  Around half of the 290 delegates present had never been to a previous IEEC.  I met with a number of our ‘newbies’ over lunch and felt so happy when they spoke about how welcoming, how inclusive, how fun our community of enterprise and entrepreneurship educators are.  It put them at ease and enabled them to fully engage with the range of activities that were on offer.

There was also the opportunity to sit down and catch up with colleagues who I hadn’t seen in person for a number of years.  Between the spirited conversations and hugs I realised that these individuals were more than just like-minded colleagues.  After spending years working together, sharing good practice, having challenging discussions, we had actually become friends.  These friendships are powerful, they have enabled me as an enterprise and entrepreneurship educator to keep going when times get tough, supported me in moments of uncertainty, and they’ve been there to celebrate at times of triumph!

So to all those newbies that joined us at IEEC 2022; Welcome!  I look forward to seeing you again at IEEC 2023, at the University of Surrey and I hope like me, you begin to feel the strength and comfort of the enterprise and entrepreneurship education community enabling you on your own journey to success.

Bristol: Enterprise Sessions

A series of films by the University of Bristol in which company founders, researchers and academics talk candidly about their personal experiences working in the enterprise space has attracted widespread praise for its diverse subject matter and honest approach.

The Enterprise Sessions see Professor Michele Barbour, the University’s Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor: Enterprise & Innovation interview guests about the challenges and opportunities of forming spin-out and start-up companies, on raising funding, collaborating on industry partnerships, and the joys of seeing the impact of their research realized.

Michele’s guests include company founders Tom Carter (Ultraleap), Neciah Dorh (FluoretiQ) and Konstantina Psoma(Kaedim), alongside academics working in industry partnerships or as consultants.

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Manchester: Winners announced for the 2022 Harari Graphene Enterprise Award

Physics alumnus and founder of global flash-memory giant, SanDisk, Dr. Eli Harari has generously supported the annual competition.

This year’s first prize winning venture is developing a green, bioinspired alternative to ceramic tiles. Second prize was awarded to a company using graphene as the strain sensing element in wide-area strain sensing applications from aerospace to fitness tracking.

The winners of the new sustainability award were a team aiming to develop a neuroprosthetic device that allows amputees to feel the ground as they walk with their prosthetic leg.

Find out more about the winners

Solent: Innovation Hub

Solent Business School, Solent University Southampton, is pleased to announce that it has gained funding to open an Innovation Hub to support the Enterprise eco-system within the School and University.    We are reaching out to our fellow HEIs for advice and guidance around developing this type of space and even potentially being able to visit your already developed spaces?   Please contact with claire.hughes@solent.ac.uk if you might be able to support this, we will be very happy to host you in return at the opening of our Innovation Hub centre.

Lancaster: Regenerative curriculum co-created with students and local community

Good Place Innovators from Lancaster University Management School, an EEUK funded project, presented their model of regenerative curriculum at the Lancaster University Education Conference attended by over 100 staff and students from Lancaster global family. The focus of the project has been on encouraging educators to incorporate place into their curriculum and the conference paper confirmed the positive impact on students learning as well as regenerative approach to curriculum development enhancing the academic engagement. The conference page provides more details about the project approach: Conference | Good Place Innovators (lancs.ac.uk)

Durham Venture School. US Trip

DVS is a six-month accelerator programme open to any Durham graduate. The first cohort concluded in May culminating in a trip to Silicon Valley to connect with Durham alumni, both entrepreneurs and investors. Highlights included meeting Silicon Valley’s latest tech unicorn, a visit to Start X at Stanford University and a masterclass on fundraising at the HQ of Andreesen Horowitz.  This amazing experience was both aspirational and inspirational; and expanded the groups horizons as to their potential and what they think is possible. You can find out more DVS. chris.gilman@durham.ac.uk.

 

Bristol: Start-up wins University funding

A student start-up developing an on-the-go cleaning case for reusable menstrual cups has won a slice of £75,000 in funding from the University of Bristol after following an Innovation degree.   With a growing acceptance of enterprise and entrepreneurship at the University of Bristol, teams from across the University now deliver education and support in joined up way that has led to increased funding and improved delivery. Beyond the headlines there have been many financial and support packages delivered through Runway, Basecamp and SetSquared this last academic year and the teams are coming together to deliver bigger and better by 2023!

The Impact Research Group are a cross institutional group of academics interested in exploring the impacts of Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Education (EEE) in a wide range of contexts.

We grew from an Enterprise Education and Research Project Fund (EERPF) award from Enterprise Educators UK (EEUK) in 2019. The original grant enabled our team of 8 to produce a world-leading review of personal self-assessment tools for EEE competencies, (available via the ETC ToolKit) and an analysis of policy outcomes in the UK.

The EERPF award was central to the development of the group, it allowed us to buy resources and data we otherwise would not have had access to, it gave us legitimacy beyond our institutions, and it positioned us to disseminate our results to an international audience. However, the most important thing that the funding did, and this is arguably one of the least tangible elements, is that it catalysed action – because we had the grant money, we had to deliver on it, and this in turn shaped the group and our values. In fact, it continues to do so almost 2-years later!

Since the completion of the project in 2020 the group has grown and now numbers more than 20 researchers based across the globe who are interested in exploring the impacts of EEE.

Our current projects can be described in 3 broad themes:

1. A qualitative and quantitative exploration of EEE programmes to ascertain how they are designed, presented, and executed;
2. A qualitative and quantitative review of personal self-assessment tools for EEE competencies focused on their design, formulation, and execution; and
3. A quantitative review of UK graduate outcome and excellence framework data to explore what this tells us about the impacts of EEE across the UK.

 

We are active in presenting the groups work at conferences, and have just started to publish in journals, with articles coming out in 2022 and 2023.

If you would like to get involved, we are always happy to welcome new members! We meet once a month during term-time (virtually) to review projects and share news, you do not have to commit to certain number of meetings a year, or take part in any particular project unless you feel able to contribute. Generally, we try to keep things relaxed, inclusive, and relatively informal. You can find more information, including how to contact us on our website or, you can drop Matthew Rogers-Draycott an email.

Cardiff Met: Annual CF5 Business Bootcamp marks Cardiff Met’s latest achievements in graduate outcomes and start up success’

From 20^th – 24^th June, Cardiff Metropolitan University’s Centre for Entrepreneurship ran its annual CF5 Business Bootcamp empowering students and graduates by equipping them with the tools and confidence to begin their start up journey. The flagship event supports entrepreneurially minded students and graduates to explore self-employment via a weeklong intensive programme of interactive workshops, activities, networking, and pitching. The invaluable support and development provided during the week culminated in a demo day, allowing participants to practice their pitch decks and exhibit their products to receive feedback before applying for up to £3000 provided by Santander Universities – https://bit.ly/3bQ6hNl

 

NTU: Phil Clarke FEEUK, to leave Nottingham Trent University at the end of July, 17 Years after jumping for joy at getting a job in enterprise education. 

The seed was planted during a casual conversation over dinner, a friend suggesting that Phil’s knowledge and experience of running businesses for 17 years could be well used in education. Two weeks later Phil spotted an ad for a role at NTU (at The Hive). He “jumped for joy” when he got the job, his enthusiasm for enterprise education has never diminished and the rest, as they say, is history!

If you’d like to leave Phil a message and/or contribute to the online collection https://www.thankbox.com/app/thankbox/1mIshtkb

 

Derby: Top 100 Businesses in Derbyshire

Researchers from Derby Business School have compiled the annual list of Top 200 businesses in Derbyshire. The list is based on turnover — a simple but powerful indicator of business growth and relative positioning. This Top 200 will feed into the East Midlands Top 500 Companies league table, due to be published in July. Some clear trends and growth sectors have emerged in the 2022 listing for Derbyshire, including decarbonisation and clean growth tech, digital, and services more broadly.

Find out more about the Top 200 listing >

Arts: Enterprise Challenge 2022

LCF are pleased to announce this year’s winners of its annual Enterprise Challenge. The first-place winners of the 2022 Enterprise Challenge Award are duo Alice Simpson, MA Fashion Design Technology (Menswear), and Emily Taylor, MA Fashion Futures, for their pitch on SAGES, a company creating natural dyes derived from food waste products. They will receive funding from the Challenge sponsors Shaftesbury PLC, PR and digital coaching support from Sister London, marketing promotion from Eyes on Talents, mentoring from The Wall Group and one year of membership from Soho Works including two interviews and a dedicated launch event.

Solent: The Business Pitch

The Business Pitch, a competition for entrepreneurial students and alumni from Solent University, Southampton, reached its climax crowning Mitch Wisniewski the winner, who received a £10,000 investment to accelerate his company Other Skies.    There was also a Golden Ticket presented by Carey Moore, NatWest’s Regional Director, Corporate & Commercial Banking, Solent, to Benjamin Warrington, WellBeing First.  On announcing the winner lead judge, Theo Paphitis, said, “This is a fantastic prize. Projects like this provide start-up businesses with an incredible step up, giving them access to mentors and support during a crucial stage of their business, which I’m sure will be of great benefit.”

A year-long enterprise catalyst was delivered by Nigel Page, Amanda Baker, Martha Mador and Zion Sengulay-Thomas with Jacqui Piner (GSK) and EMBRACE to support and encourage Black diversity in the pharmaceutical industry. Conscious of disadvantages facing Black students in HE and beyond, the programme provided an immersive experience empowering Black students with creativity skills and confidence. The programme included networking opportunities with a variety of industrial professionals benefitting students by engaging with role models that looked like them, hearing about their career journeys and identifying key future skills.

Gloucestershire: The Ingenuity Programme

The Ingenuity Programme exists to tackle the UK’s major social and environmental challenges through the creation of impactful new start-ups. Start and Grow Enterprise played an important part in coordinating activity for the West of England. On 17^th June 2022, Ingenuity announced its four 2022 finalists, two of which are Start and Grow Enterprise business clients! One of these finalists is Kesha Kellam, founder of Gloucestershire domestic abuse peer support group, Honour Thy Woman. The second finalist is Dave Pearson, founder of Mindminder. The finalists were given nearly £90,000 of funding to help them in the early stages of their entrepreneurial journeys.

NTU: Enactus innovative Knife Crime Project

Enactus NTU has developed an innovative Knife Crime project using VR and real stories of people affected by knife-crime, to provide a powerful learning experience in understanding the effects of knife crime. The project connected with many internal and external community organisations with  more engagements planned with  the NHS and other anti-knife crime agencies.  The  project was sole winner of the SAP Partner Competition £1000 to invest in the project and accelerate its impact . The video can be seen here https://vimeo.com/685295566/1d7f7f51e4

Exposure through EEUK will increase project credibility and prove beneficial as we raise future funding.

St Andrews: The Entrepreneurship Centre

The Entrepreneurship Centre at the University of St Andrews opened its doors for the first time in September 2021. In the space of just a few months, the centre has had fantastic success by integrating itself into the university eco-system by providing practical entrepreneurship training to help turn ideas and research into a commercial reality. Across 4 structured programmes covering for-profit enterprise, social entrepreneurship, web development and cloud computing, the training allows participants to develop their ideas further. Alongside the programmes, the centre hosts a busy events calendar including Lunch & Learn workshops, regular pitching sessions and a fantastic Speaker Series. The centre also provides support to university spinouts who have collectively raised £1.2m in non-dilutive funding. Lastly, the centre plays a key role in supporting consultancy projects for the university.

Durham University’s “Game Changer” Included in United Nations SDG Publication

Durham University’s Game Changer programme has been chosen by the United Nations to feature in their “SDG Good Practices: A compilation of success stories and lessons learned in SDG Implementation” publication. Chosen from over 700 submissions down to 21, the case study tells how over 500 students have participated in the programme since 2019. Game Changer uses design thinking tools to enable students to generate solutions to problems highlighted by the SDGs. Click here to read the publication. If you would like a copy of Durham University’s Game Changer toolkit to run the programme with your own students, email rachel.bickerdike@durham.ac.uk.

RGU: engages Regional Startup Accelerator finalists to compete for £80,000 in prize funding

Robert Gordon University successfully hosted their fourth annual Regional Startup Accelerator Programme showcase event, where £80,000 in prize funding were given out to the entrepreneurial teams. At the event, nine finalists got to pitch their business ideas in front of a live audience and a panel of judges. This year 36 teams have taken part in the program and have come up with a broad variety of ideas, ranging from clean energy to safety technology and more. Find out which teams won, by watching the event online and learn who got awarded cash prizes in categories such as ‘Climate Impact Award’ or ‘Regional Impact Award’.

Imperial College: Launch of new podcast

The Imperial Enterprise Lab has recently launched a brand new podcast Black & Found, focusing on amplifying the entrepreneurial journeys of Black/Black mixed heritage founders. The concept of the podcast was inspired by statistics highlighting the lack of investment, promotion and exposure of Black led ventures. The first series welcomes guests with an association to Imperial College London including alumni and one of their Imperial Venture Mentoring Service mentors. Please tune in, be inspired and share!

University of Nottingham: YES22 rethinking the future

YES22 is open for applications! Calling STEM PhDs, postdocs, technicians, early career academics and knowledge exchange professionals, to take part this autumn in Biotechnology YES, Engineering YES or Environment YES to gain commercial awareness and business skills from leading entrepreneurs and practitioners. YES is a global competition for those wishing to deploy novel science and engineering to address environmental and societal challenges. This year’s prize fund is £10k+. Discover more here; join one of our 30-minute online information sessions or help raise awareness.