Westminster: Cases on Entrepreneurship and Diversity
Cases on Entrepreneurship and Diversity (Edward Elgar Publishing) edited by Dr Spinder Dhaliwal, was launched recently at Westminster Business School. This casebook draws from first-hand experiences to reflect upon different approaches to, mindsets and attitudes towards entrepreneurship. With contributions from highly experienced academics from a variety of backgrounds, it will help entrepreneurship educators and teachers to decolonise business and innovation curricula while reflecting on key academic questions relating to unique entrepreneurial journeys. It’s Key Features include contributions from leading international scholars, practical and useful learning outcomes, discussion questions and teaching notes and true life experiences of entrepreneurs from around the globe to explore both their strengths and the challenges they face with their ventures

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Manchester: Masood Entrepreneurship Centre

The University of Manchester is celebrating its bicentenary this year and across the University, we are reflecting. At the Masood Entrepreneurship Centre (MEC) we have been looking at the impact we have had over the last 20 years. Historical data shows that our start-ups achieve a very high survival rate of >68%. Our database of 426 start-up businesses, shows 291 are still active, with growing employment numbers and attracting significant external investment. In the last 6 months alone, UK-registered MEC start-ups have received £29.5m in equity fundraising, and nearly £220k in grants.

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ARU announces their inaugural Freelancer Fast-Start Programme

This intensive programme supports aspiring freelancers at ARU to become ‘invoice-ready’ in 2 weeks. All final year students and recent graduates, regardless of their course, were eligible to apply providing they had a freelancer skill or offer. This programme will see the 25 participants shortlisted out of over 100 applicants working with industry experts on their freelancer finances, building a digital footprint, designing communications and branding, and launching a sales funnel. Furthermore, participants will benefit from 15 months of ongoing support, budget for tech and freelancing platforms, and a community of fellow freelancers.

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Lincoln: Female Founders Graduate Accelerator Programme

The University of Lincoln’s Student Enterprise team is delighted to have launched its first Female Founders Graduate Accelerator programme. The programme aims to address the critical start-up support and funding gap faced by female entrepreneurs. In the UK, female entrepreneur teams receive less than 1p for every £1 of venture capital investment, a glaring discrepancy compared to the 89p for all-male teams (British Business Bank VC Female Founders Report). The accelerator will support the formation of 10 new Graduate female founder-led start-ups with funding and long-term mentoring support to sustain the growth and development of these exciting new businesses. Click here for the full write up.

Strathclyde: Guest Speaker Rupert Maitland-Titteron

As part of the Entrepreneurial Finance module on the MSc Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship welcomed Rupert Maitland-Titteron as a guest speaker on 23rd February. Rupert is the Director of Hive Ventures, a socially conscious equity investment organisation. His insights into how investment decisions for startups are made were invaluable. Startups have little or no financial history so deciding to invest (or not) becomes more of an art than a science.

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Falmouth: A Year in Review

Cornwall Business School, Falmouth University is hosting A Year in Review business conference and exhibition on the 17^th of May, 2024, Friday. This year’s theme is ‘Building Resilience’ and different businesses will be in talks with academics to discuss how could businesses build resilience in different ways – from sustainability and innovation to tapping into the right skills. This conference will also exhibit the wonderful projects done by the students and academics this academic year from both business and experience design courses in the form of poster presentations. Please email cbs@falmouth.ac.uk to book a spot.

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UCL: Business School for Science Entrepreneurs
Scientists looking to build new ventures have to take on board a brand new set of norms and behaviours to be credible as entrepreneurs in business. The ambition behind UCL’s new cross-disciplinary MSc in Bioscience Innovation & Enterprise is to empower science graduates to speak the language of business better.  Such that they can identify potentially-valuable science, and explain that value to the business actors for whom it will be useful. More multi-lingual scientists, it is hoped, will help kick-start entrepreneurial ambition, and accelerate the processing of scientific ideas into social and economic value.