Aston University is a place where entrepreneurship thrives, recognised in 2020 by the THE Award for Outstanding Entrepreneurial University of the year.  Our commitment to nurturing entrepreneurs is enshrined in our strategy, engrained in our culture and evident through the extensive range of practical, innovative entrepreneurial programmes taking place across the University.

Student and graduate entrepreneurs can develop business ideas as part of Apollo the mini-accelerator programme funded by Santander Universities, and go on to cultivate their start-up in with the support of BSEEN, the long running, award winning, collaborative Birmingham-based startup support project, part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund.

In 2020, Aston’s Centre for Growth celebrated 6 years of delivering practical business support to entrepreneurs, to enable them to innovate and grow. Thanks to cutting-edge research, first-class teaching and effective partnerships, the Centre’s programmes are having a powerful impact on business creation and investment in the region.  It has recently been at the forefront of the curriculum development and delivery of the Small Business Leadership Programme, designed to support senior leaders to enhance their business’s resilience and recovery from the impact of COVID-19.

Aston is home to CREME the Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship, which under the leadership of Professor Monder Ram has built up an enviable reputation regionally, nationally and internationally for its pioneering research and business engagement activities, promoting diversity and enterprise.

Professor Mark Hart is the Deputy Director of the Enterprise Research Centre (ERC) based jointly at Aston and Warwick, which since it was established in 2013 has provided high quality, independent research and analysis to inform government policy on small and medium sized enterprises.

Main contact:  Carolyn Keenan, BSEEN Project Manager c.a.keenan@aston.ac.uk