Phoenix ISSUE 159 FEBRUARY 2020
What is an Entrepreneurial University? Sparking successful student start-ups A partnership approach to supporting independent workers Side hustling: building passions, pensions and possibilities
ENTERPRISE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP Phoenix is the AGCAS journal
500 AGCAS JOB PROFILES Produced in collaboration with our partners Graduate Prospects, the number of AGCAS Job Profiles has reached an impressive 500.
IN-DEPTH COVERAGE From Academic librarian through to Zoologist, Job profiles cover a range of occupations that students and graduates are most interested in, providing key information on: • qualifications and other entry requirements • salaries • work experience • skills required • typical employers • vacancy sources • professional development • career prospects
QUALITY All new Job profiles are thoroughly researched and written by HE careers professionals, usually AGCAS members, to ensure impartiality and high quality. Job profiles are updated on a regular basis by AGCAS editors in collaboration with relevant professional bodies, employers, Sector Skills Councils, academics, AGCAS members and other organisations to ensure they remain current and relevant.
PERSONAL INSIGHTS Many of the Job profiles also include case studies from recent graduates in a range of roles, offering real-life insights into their careers.
COLLABORATION This material forms part of AGCAS’s joint commitment with Graduate Prospects to produce relevant and up-to-date careers information content for the benefit of students, graduates, careers professionals and the wider HE community.
Find out more: www.agcas.org.uk/Prospects
february 2020
CONTENTS
ENTERPRISE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP 5
TOGETHER STRONGER: A WINNING COMBINATION University of South Wales
6 THE SEVEN SKILLS OF AN ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET King’s College London
8 GLOBAL ENTERPRISE FOR MODERN LANGUAGES University of Birmingham
9 SPARKING SUCCESSFUL STUDENT START-UPS University of Lincoln
10 WHAT IS AN ENTREPRENEURIAL UNIVERSITY? National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education (NCEE)
11 COMMUNITY, COLLABORATION, CREATIVITY: AWARD-WINNING ENTREPRENEURIAL DELIVERY Loughborough University
12 FOSTERING ENTREPRENEURIALISM: COLLABORATION NOT COMPETITION University of Cambridge
14 A PARTNERSHIP APPROACH TO SUPPORTING INDEPENDENT WORKERS The Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed (IPSE)
15 DEVELOPING A HIVE OF ENTERPRISE ACTIVITY Nottingham Trent University
16 NOTHING VENTURED, NOTHING GAINED University of Chester
18 SIDE-HUSTLING: BUILDING PASSIONS, PENSIONS AND POSSIBILITIES Henley Business School
19 MIGHTY OAKS FROM LITTLE ACORNS GROW: REBUILDING AN ENTERPRISE OFFER Leeds Beckett University
20 A CREATIVE FRAMEWORK FOR ENTERPRISE AND EMPLOYABILITY University of the Arts London
22 AGCAS ENTERPRISE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP TASK GROUP
23 AGCAS CREATIVE INDUSTRIES TASK GROUP
24 IN CONVERSATION WITH... Gareth Trainer, Chair of Enterprise Educators UK (EEUK)
26 THE 48HR STARTUP: WHAT A DIFFERENCE A WEEKEND MAKES King’s College London
27 ENGAGING STUDENTS WITH BRIGHT IDEAS University of Liverpool
28 EMBEDDING THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT Istituto Marangoni
29 SUPPORTING STUDENTS TO CREATE THEIR OWN FUTURE Ulster University
30 CREATING AN ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEM University of Hertfordshire
31 RISING TO THE CHALLENGE OF START-UP University of Liverpool in London and Loughborough University London
32 ENABLING EXTRACURRICULAR ENTERPRISE FOR ALL Newcastle University
34 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND CAREER DEVELOPMENT FOR CREATIVE STUDENTS Robert Gordon University
PLUS 35 THE CLIMATE CRISIS: AN ELEPHANT IN THE INTERVIEW ROOM?
36 PROSPECTS: CEMENTING STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS
Phoenix is the digital journal of AGCAS, the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services. It is published three times a year. To find out more about AGCAS, see www.agcas.org.uk Design and production, Marcom (Marketing Communications) Ltd tel. 01225 481734 www.mar-com.net
PHOENIX EDITORIAL GROUP Francesca Bauer Editor, AGCAS
Suzie Bullock Careers Adviser University of Leeds
Jenny Hammond Employability Adviser Liverpool John Moores University
Mary Macfarlane Careers and Employability Consultant Leeds Beckett University Lisa McWilliams Head of Careers and Employability Keele University
Holly Seager Information and Guidance Coordinator The University of Manchester
Ellen Shobrook Educational Development Coordinator University of Birmingham
Rebecca Valentine Careers Consultant The University of Edinburgh
message from the
EDITOR ENTERPRISE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
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s graduates are increasingly required to demonstrate greater career agility to navigate an ever complex and transient labour market, a deeper understanding and interpretation of what it is to be entrepreneurial has never been more important. Enterprise education has therefore become a prominent feature of the employability narrative. This issue highlights the collaborative activity taking place across higher education institutions to synergise careers, employability and enterprise. In some cases, this is as a direct result of departmental mergers; for others it has come from a renewed commitment to more joined-up ways of working in response to the current policy focus on graduate outcomes and measures of graduate success. The partnership working on show serves to highlight how enterprise activity can be nurtured across structural boundaries to create an entrepreneurial ecosystem. AGCAS members are being enterprising themselves in crafting service delivery, taking an entrepreneurial approach to the development and running of programmes of activity via a range of different formats, to support students’ career development needs. There are examples of embedded, co-curricular and extracurricular delivery of enterprise education to a diverse student (and graduate) body, which has led to engagement from previously unengaged groups and fruitful collaborations with alumni, academics and local business communities. Many of the articles demonstrate how careers services are supporting students to consider self-employment as a viable and credible career path, alongside other options, by fostering a community for graduate start-ups and fledgling businesses to collaborate, grow and succeed. But, as stated by the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education (NCEE), a truly entrepreneurial university should offer so much more than support for student/graduate start-ups. You can read how Loughborough University’s holistic approach helped them scoop the 2019 Times Higher Education Award for Outstanding Entrepreneurial University. You can also read examples of how AGCAS members across the UK are committed to developing the entrepreneurial skills of all students, redefining the concept of ‘entrepreneurialism’ and its application across all disciplines and career pathways, to demonstrate a far broader relevance than just to those students who wish to start their own business. Common to many of the initiatives featured in this issue is how careers and employability practitioners are using new language and switching messaging away from the narrow definitions of enterprise and entrepreneurialism, to empower students to explore what being entrepreneurial means in their own career context and understand the overlaps between working independently and being employed. Finally, we feature a Q&A with Gareth Trainer, Chair of Enterprise Educators UK (EEUK), and the first AGCAS member to hold this post. Amongst other things, Gareth shares his views on the commonalities between employability and enterprise and how AGCAS and EEUK can work together for the benefit of the sector. He also talks about the review of the HE-BCI survey, the non-start-up outcomes of enterprise education and the collection and onward use of self-employed data. I hope you enjoy this issue. Gemma Green, Head of External Relations, AGCAS
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ENTERPRISE SUPPORTING AND INTERNATIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP STUDENTS
together stronger: A WINNING COMBINATION
TAILORED DELIVERY Tailored collaborative events with academics has increased student attendance, particularly those that are sector-based. One such event is Create and Collaborate, which continues to go from strength to strength. Originally a start-up network in 2016, it evolved in partnership with USW Careers, the Faculty of Creative Industries and the Students’ Union (SU). Taking place in the SU bar each term, each evening sees 80-90 students arrive to pitch and network with creative industry professionals, drawn from our strong entrepreneurial alumni and community network. In addition to having the opportunity to practise their professional skills, students have benefited in other ways through offers of mentoring, placements, work and volunteering opportunities. As a great NSS booster, other faculties have been in touch to deliver a similar version.
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
Lloyd Williams, Employability Development Manager, and Emma Forouzan, Student Enterprise Manager, outline how bringing enterprise and employability together at the University of South Wales (USW) has invigorated the USW Careers offering for the benefit of the institution.
In 2018, the development of USW’s graduate attributes was also influenced by the enterprise-employability partnership. It naturally followed that ‘enterprise and innovation’ was one of the six key attributes, to promote confidence, proactivity and a growth mindset. Alongside employability, utilising the 2018 QAA Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Education guidance, enterprise and entrepreneurship skills are considered and discussed by careers staff during curriculum design and development. This has been particularly important whilst advising upon the development of an active and challenge-based curriculum. An example of this has been the recent success of a one-day Innovation Led Challenge pilot for Health and Social Care, focusing on developing students' enterprising skills for industry. Working on a live challenge set by the NHS, the winning idea is due to be rolled out in 2020. This activity will now be embedded within the course.
FUTURE DIRECTION January 2016 saw the Careers Service at the University of South Wales (USW) welcome the Student Enterprise Team, with the aim of joining up employability and enterprise to provide a holistic service for students and graduates.
FRESH APPROACH Being a small team, Student Enterprise instantly benefited from the Careers Service’s single appointment service, referrals from advisers and enhanced visibility both online and across campuses. Student Enterprise equally brought new ways of thinking, student engagement methods, delivery styles and access to entrepreneurs into the mix, resulting in a fresh collegiate approach. Working together has resulted in new and improved activity and opportunities for delivery both within and alongside the curriculum. Our portfolio of co-curricular workshops was re-vamped and enhanced by adding options such as pitching, freelancing, IP, creative thinking and access to entrepreneurial guest speakers. Targeting academic staff with a series of workshops that could be sequenced together resulted in the number of in-curriculum careers workshops more than doubling from 2016 to 2019.
The new USW 2030 strategy and our progress to date will ensure that our future direction will continue to focus upon transforming our students, equipping them to make an impact on a regional and international stage. Supporting and mentoring our new and flourishing Enactus Team, which is dedicated to community-focused social enterprise activity, is yet another example of this. Enterprise – and being enterprising ourselves – has propelled this agenda across USW, helping our students to be confident and prepared for their future. Between 2016 – 2019, 15,796 students were engaged in and inspired by our enterprise sessions and events. There is always more to do, including graduate engagement as part of Graduate Outcomes and tracking business start-ups for the HEBCI Survey. However, we are now one team, with a shared vision of graduate success, and we look forward to what we can achieve in the next four years.
/in/lloydwilliams /in/emma-forouzan
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the Seven Skills of an ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET
Rachel Stockey, Head of Entrepreneurial Skills at the Entrepreneurship Institute (EI), provides an overview of the framework developed at EI, which is now used to underpin all enterprise education activities at King’s College London.
WHERE WE ONCE TALKED ABOUT SKILLS IN A BROAD AND ABSTRACT MANNER,
WE NOW HAVE A TANGIBLE AND CONCRETE SET
THAT WE CAN REFER TO, PLAY WITH AND MEASURE OUR SUCCESS AGAINST 6
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E
ntrepreneurial skills are often talked about as the skills that are required to be a successful entrepreneur. However, at King’s College London, we believe that entrepreneurial skills have far broader application and relevance than just to those who want to start companies. If we can develop entrepreneurial skills and mindsets across all our students, we will have King’s graduates entering all sectors, fields and professions capable of not only navigating complex and unknown futures but thriving within them as entrepreneurial people. We developed the Seven Skills of an Entrepreneurial Mindset framework to help us drive this mission.
DEFINITION AND RELEVANCE What do we mean when we talk about entrepreneurial skills? And how do we ensure that all students understand how and why these skills are relevant to them and their futures? We needed to be able to answer these questions and clearly articulate to students which skills they would gain in order to secure their participation in our programmes. As enterprise educators, we are used to encouraging students to clearly
define the unique value proposition of their idea. If we expect our students to do this work, we should surely apply the same due diligence. Following an in-depth consultation process, we developed a skills framework that would form the foundation of all the activities we run. Ultimately, if a student participates in any one of our opportunities they will come away having developed one or more of the entrepreneurial skills, which in turn will have a positive impact on their futures. These skills each have a range of learning objectives and supporting resources. We can now run workshops on each individual skill, or we can design whole programmes that combine and develop a combination of all these skills together to form the entrepreneurial mindset. Where we once talked about skills in a broad and abstract manner, we now have a tangible and concrete set that we can refer to, play with and, importantly, measure our success against.
ENGAGING NEW AUDIENCES One of the great things to have come out of creating this framework is how we have been able to use it to reach a new student audience. Over the past few years we have struggled to engage students from certain
The Seven Skills of an Entrepreneurial mindset 1. COMPEL To have a powerful and irresistible effect which provokes behaviour change and increases credibility and loyalty.
2. DISRUPT Being willing to question the way things are done and be bold in proposing revolutionary, better ways of thinking and doing.
3. THINK LEAN Dedication to rapid, continual learning and adapting through real world testing.
4. VALIDATE To prove that an idea is viable and gain traction; the eradication of bias and assumption.
5. BE RESILIENT Develop a rapid, self-aware and objective ‘bounce-back-ability’.
6. BUILD TEAMS
faculties, particularly those subjects that have an expected occupation attached, such as medicine, dentistry and law. By switching our message away from launching startups (which these students have previously dismissed as not relevant to them) to skills, we have been able to open a dialogue around what it might mean to become an entrepreneurial version of themselves and how that might impact their future career. If for instance they became an entrepreneurial doctor, what might that look like? It might mean driving innovations in policy or practice, maybe championing change within the NHS, or starting their own practice. Suddenly we’re engaged in a conversation about the skills needed to be at the cutting edge of a field, which is attractive to students who are increasingly chasing careers that will have an impact.
And it’s not just student interest that has grown. We have also used this framework when talking to academics; we are now co-designing and delivering entrepreneurial skills through the curriculum with four different faculties at King’s. This means we are reaching more and more students in ways that are structurally unavoidable within their studies whilst also being given the opportunity to demonstrate the relevance and importance of entrepreneurial skills. We will continue to champion entrepreneurial skills for all King’s students. The creation of a clearly defined framework has opened conversations with previously unengaged student groups and departments, improved our impact measurement and made our entire enterprise education offer more cohesive and accessible.
To find, develop and grow effective and successful diverse teams.
7. GET IT DONE Prioritising execution above all else, you know that the best way to make progress is to take real action, so that is what you do.
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ENTERPRISE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Helen Hook, Enterprise Educator in Careers Network's B-Enterprising Team, outlines a partnership between the University of Birmingham and the Department for International Trade (DIT), which led to the development of a modern languages enterprise education module aimed at giving students enhanced skills after they graduate.
Global Enterprise for MODERN LANGUAGES
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urricular enterprise forms part of the University of Birmingham’s work to embrace enterprise education through experiential learning and authentic assessment. We work with local and regional industry partners to equip students with enterprising and entrepreneurial skills, including creative thinking, resilience and independent learning, with the ultimate goal of preparing students for employment after graduation. This embedded and contextualised approach to enterprise education is already being identified as innovative in terms of employability, and is the product of partnership between the Careers Network and leading academics.
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING The Department of Modern Languages identified the need for more experiential learning in their programme to support the employability of their students and equip
By working with the University of Birmingham we’re able to bring reallife experiences and insight into the lecture theatre to give tomorrow’s business leaders the best grounding for international success. Ian Harrison, Head of Exports for the Midlands Regions at the Department for International Trade (DIT)
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graduates with skills for the workplace alongside linguistic fluency and enhanced cultural awareness. Having previously gained the support of the Department for International Trade (DIT) in the delivery of extra-curricular projects, we developed our partnership further and worked together to create the Global Enterprise Project, a new credit bearing, enterprise-focussed module contextualised for modern languages. The 10-week module is intended to introduce second-year students to the key concepts of business, consultancy planning and enterprise in the area of modern languages. In groups, students select a live industry brief from an external partner who has a global outlook specialising in international partnerships. Students are trained in understanding the processes and pitfalls of developing, planning and pitching a project proposal whilst learning about using creative thinking for idea generation, market research, marketing and value proposition, and operations and finance. The module provides 10 credits towards a student’s degree and is exclusively delivered by international trade advisers and experts in language, culture, digital and intellectual property from DIT’s midlands team.
REAL-LIFE SCENARIOS Key to the module’s development was the need to offer students the opportunity to gain a range of transferable skills, some of which are difficult to teach in traditional ‘classroom’ contexts, intertwined with authentic assessments. Each week, different members of DIT come to deliver key content,
The module is a chance to push yourself out of your comfort zone and try something new in a supportive setting. It has increased my confidence in possibly working in the business sector in the future…taking this module has helped me to see the possibilities for exporting products in the future. Second year student, BA Liberal Arts and Natural Sciences which students then extract for use in their assessed work. The first year of the programme has seen 14 students benefit from the new module and feedback has been overwhelmingly positive: “having outside lecturers made it even more interesting as it was more relatable to real life scenarios”. Following the successful launch of the programme, the number of students taking the module next year has more than doubled to 32 students. Having DIT involved in the design and delivery of this module supports our graduates to be work-ready, enterprising, creative and transformative thinkers. We feel very lucky to have them as an industry partner and we are currently working together on the module’s next iteration. /in/helen-hook h.hook@bham.ac.uk
ENTERPRISE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
SPARKING SUCCESSFUL STUDENT START-UPS Reece Leggett, Student Enterprise Coordinator at the University of Lincoln, discusses the success the university has had over the last five years in growing graduate enterprise and encouraging students to see self-employment as a viable and exciting career path.
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t the University of Lincoln, we see enterprise and entrepreneurship as key to ensuring students and graduates enjoy fulfilling and successful careers. We recognise that while many students look for graduate roles to kick-start their professional journey, a large number of ambitious individuals wish to start their own business. The Student Enterprise team is on hand to ensure these students have all the information and support they need to make this exciting prospect a successful reality.
COLLABORATION IS KEY Our model is based on cooperation and collaboration: Student Enterprise works closely with Careers & Employability and with external organisations, including the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education (NCEE) and Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), to enhance students’ career prospects. We are dedicated to ensuring that all of our students and graduates have access to the options, support and resources to allow them to make informed career decisions.
A CULTURE OF INNOVATION The university is well equipped to support student start-up businesses, given our track record of successful business incubation in Greater Lincolnshire. Our Student Enterprise service is based in Sparkhouse, a hub for fledgling businesses, offering graduate start-ups a supportive and innovative environment. Sparkhouse is home to over fifty forward-thinking businesses, with our networking events and shared facilities providing excellent opportunities for young start-ups to collaborate. The university is also home to Think Tank, a dynamic centre for innovation, which provides young companies with everything they need to accelerate growth and
success. To date, both centres have supported over 700 businesses and helped create 785 new jobs. Many of these businesses have been started by our own graduates, covering a range of specialisms, including graphic design, digital marketing and social media management.
DOING THINGS DIFFERENTLY Although engagement in Student Enterprise is increasing, raising awareness of the service can be a challenge. As well as promoting ourselves through targeted marketing, it’s important for us to increase our visibility in front of students. We regularly attend internal events and deliver introductory lectures to highlight the advantages of freelance work and starting a business. Another successful way of embedding student enterprise across our university has been through lecture shout-outs in local schools and colleges. Such visits have allowed us to support the career aspirations of driven young adults before they reach university age, while embedding a sense of excitement around business and innovation. In line with our approach to do things differently, we also work in partnership with the Students’ Union on their Swans Den competition, which supports students wanting to start their own business through a pitching process to win funding. We offer pitching advice and support to all contenders, running mock interviews and raising key questions about their product or idea.
HERE’S TO THE FUTURE As interest in self-employment continues to grow, we aim to respond to the changing needs of our students and industries, developing the services we offer. This will partly be facilitated by funding we have been awarded to help bring our graduates’ business ideas to life. Our upcoming Enterprise Days will launch in the next academic year and will consist of micro workshops, open to all students and graduates. They will be tailored to participants’ needs, focusing on key areas where support is needed including bookkeeping, law and general business basics. Developing a space for enterprise to flourish is also key to our overall strategy and we are excited to be refurbishing our Ideas Hub in Sparkhouse. As well as functioning as a place to access support and mentoring from the Student Enterprise team, the Hub will be a space for student and graduate start-ups to hot-desk, meet clients and network with other businesses. The University of Lincoln’s Student Enterprise team and our functionality is expanding. We’re looking forward to a bright future at Lincoln, where our students and their future prospects are at the heart of everything we do.
/in/reece-leggett rleggett@lincoln.ac.uk @Reece_Leggett
ENTERPRISE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
what is an ENTREPRENEURIAL UNIVERSITY? An entrepreneurial university is one where:
For over 10 years, the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education (NCEE) has supported the Outstanding Entrepreneurial University Award as part of the Times Higher Education Awards. Ceri Nursaw, Chief Executive of NCEE, outlines how a truly entrepreneurial university offers so much more than student start-ups or the commercialisation of research.
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ur NCEE Leadership Survey 2019: Changes and challenges facing university leadership found that, over the next few years, navigating financial uncertainty, driving internal change and developing a culture of innovation will be the most important activities for higher education leaders. The uncertainties and complexities ahead require responses in new and innovative ways. Entrepreneurial universities will rise to the challenge, and are defined as those that value and reward initiative, promote and encourage relationships and networks, allow risk, recognise and enable individual entrepreneurial behaviour, build a collective shared culture, and lead rather than manage.
ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOUR ”Enterprising behaviour demands freedom for individuals to take ownership of initiatives, see such initiatives through, enjoy and take personal ownership of external and internal relationships, and make mistakes and learn
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from them by ‘doing’" (The Entrepreneurial University Concept - 20 Key Questions by Allan Gibb, 2013). Rethinking the way we work – initiating, testing and piloting new ways of doing things – is one of the hardest challenges. There is comfort in the status quo and with the way things have always been done, but we are moving to a world where it will become increasingly uncomfortable if we do not change. To enable individual entrepreneurial behaviour, the university must have the structures and policies in place to enable a true entrepreneurial ecosystem. Our Entrepreneurial University Scorecard, which reviews the entrepreneurial potential of a university, sets out the 10 areas where entrepreneurial behaviour should manifest; from strategy and governance through to external engagement and practice.
The curriculum is shaped by the world around us, and the world that will be inhabited by our students. It recognises the skills and aptitudes needed both now, and in the future, where personal innovation and entrepreneurialism will be valued. It is connected to the world around it, listening and communicating to a local and global audience. Identifying opportunities and being alive to the debates and discourse around it. I t empowers its staff, rewarding individual entrepreneurial endeavour and sharing risk. Its overarching reward and promotion explicitly recognise innovation in its broadest sense. I ts research and practice engage with the outside world, from large corporate organisations to local SMEs, charities and social enterprises. It has an international, national and local footprint that is meaningful and sustainable. In research and teaching, the entrepreneurial university will break down traditional disciplinary boundaries, encouraging interdisciplinarity and crossfertilisation of ideas. People lead rather than manage, encouraging autonomy, freedom of thought and the empowerment of individuals.
ENTERPRISE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
community, collaboration, creativity: AWARD-WINNING ENTREPRENEURIAL DELIVERY Loughborough University won the Times Higher Education Award for Outstanding Entrepreneurial University 2019. Dr Sophie-Louise Hyde, Student Enterprise Adviser, outlines the three core values that lie at the heart of Loughborough Enterprise Network (LEN).
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oughborough Enterprise Network (LEN) focuses explicitly on fostering student and graduate entrepreneurship activity, offering multiple access points for our cohorts to benefit from innovative opportunities and initiatives. We value and encourage collaboration across disciplines and the building of key pockets of community. LEN achieves all of this and more through our strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders and the consistent emphasis placed on our three core values: Community, Collaboration and Creativity.
COMMUNITY At the heart of LEN are our students and graduates. Working with them across multiple access points and programmes at various levels – from Initiate for beginners, to Evolve at intermediate level right through to The Studio, our two-year graduate accelerator programme – this ecosystem actively builds a collective shared culture, promoting pockets of community within each programme. Of more benefit, though, is the fact that these pockets of community are encouraged beyond individual programmes: we regularly
blend the facilitation of entrepreneurial activities across multiple access points and programmes. By bringing our students and graduates together with alumni and local businesses for such opportunities, LEN encourages them to build relationships and to develop their own ideas from others’ experiences.
COLLABORATION LEN is unique in its ability to work effectively across multiple access points. Our shared culture of the same core values and overarching goals is present in our work with independent organisations across geographical locations. Each part of the ecosystem is able to identify its own independent objectives, initiatives and strategies in order to achieve success. One example of collaboration at its best is Venture Crawl: a flagship event in which our London campus partners with a number of London-based universities, including King’s College London (last year’s Entrepreneurial University award winner), to take students to visit entrepreneurial spaces in the city before they have the opportunity to pitch as part of a cross-university competition. All parts of LEN – from the Students’ Union to
Loughborough are worthy winners, they have a truly holistic approach with entrepreneurialism embedded in the work of staff and students. The highlights include Associate Deans for Enterprise in every Faculty, recognition in all staff contracts, year-long placements for over 1,500 students and opportunities for engagement in regional enterprise.
our East Midlands-based undergraduate students – take part in this event to highlight the importance of collaboration across our ecosystem and beyond.
CREATIVITY Finally, LEN prides itself on encouraging and promoting both innovation and creativity across all areas of its work. Every programme and initiative is practical and interactive, regularly demonstrating new ways of working and incorporating newly developed resources for all involved. An example of this is our Student Start-Up Survival Kit. These subscription-style boxes provide our students with all the stationery, ideas and motivation they need to kick-start their business ideas. In turn, this encourages individual entrepreneurial behaviour. While LEN covers both in-curricular and extracurricular activity, all aspects of its offering encourage those involved to self-serve; to use the tools and resources available to find the information they need independently first, before accessing the support and guidance they then require. After all, isn’t innovation, creativity and independence – in the form of getting out there, taking risks, taking action and learning from your mistakes – what being entrepreneurial is all about? @LboroEntNetwork @Sophie_L_Hyde
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fostering entrepreneurialism: COLLABORATION NOT COMPETITION
Emily Packer, Careers Adviser at the University of Cambridge, outlines how careers services can support students to consider entrepreneurship as a visible, viable and credible career path. Informed by interviews with a range of individuals in Cambridgeshire, this article considers the traits of entrepreneurs, the potential blocks caused by financial and social barriers and explores the importance of community and competition.
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ntrepreneurship within universities has the potential to strengthen the civic relationship, bring business to the city and provides an opportunity for students to commercialise their ideas. Supporting entrepreneurs means new job creation and new inventions; entrepreneurship allows students to embrace their creativity, solve problems and make a living. However, it can be a struggle to promote entrepreneurialism. I have considered why entrepreneurship might not be visible in the mainstream. • Is it the guard of Business Schools? • Should it only concern people who are business ‘experts’? • Is it the ‘sink or swim’ mentality: if you’re truly an entrepreneur you will just ‘find a way’? • Are there other social and financial barriers at play? If all this were true, then how can a careers service help all our clients consider entrepreneurship alongside their other options; and what’s at the heart of how a student might make a decision?
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FOSTERING ENTREPRENEURIAL TRAITS To learn more about the realities of starting a business I went to ideaSpace, a city incubator and research hub which focuses on the development of high impact new ventures, to meet entrepreneurs living the realities. What, I wondered, was a connecting quality of entrepreneurs? By their nature, entrepreneurs are self-starters. Entrepreneurialism is likely to factor many cycles of adaption and that takes some lasting tenacity. If a business folds, an entrepreneur will take some time to reflect and pivot into something new. The reward of adaptability and taking failure as a learning point affords a unique career.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP EMPOWERS INCLUSIVITY
BEYOND THE SOCIAL BARRIERS THAT CAN
EXIST WITHIN TRADITIONAL ‘EMPLOYED’ STRUCTURES RISK IS RELATIVE Access to entrepreneurship inevitably comes down to risk, and risk is relative to circumstance. Risk also acts as motivation. In supporting access to all careers, advisers are sensitive to social factors. This is particularly important regarding risk. A students’ access to financial capital will perhaps skew how comfortable they are with risk. Understanding funding opportunities and how to help students make a calculated risk is key to opening-up entrepreneurialism as
a viable option. But it’s not just financial. If I am from a community who see entrepreneurship as a viable career, then I am more likely to have mirrored enthusiasm. I have worked with clients from every background and know that grit and determination normally win out over capital, but we must consider these sensitivities. Entrepreneurship empowers inclusivity beyond the social barriers that can exist within traditional ‘employed’ structures. Driving your own business forward offers potentially limitless opportunities for progression.
CHAMPIONING GROWTH Entrepreneurs need a community to thrive. The transition of an idea into commercial success is rarely done in isolation. Careers services’ ability to open doors to new networks, otherwise hidden, is a vital role. If, as a careers service, we can support students to network and collaborate, this can offer fertile ground for social capital and give access to a range of perspectives and opportunities to interact and foster new ideas. Confidence in building networks can be fractured by common perceptions of entrepreneurialism as rife with rivalry, promoted through pitch competitions and the broadcast of Apprentice-style egotistical solipsism. In the past I have set-up experiential learning around enterprise in a competitive structure, but learnt from my mistakes: entrepreneurialism is a learning process, not a quick win. Combative showcasing is not an environment the entrepreneurs I spoke to recognise in their professional community. The role of the careers service is to increase the visibility of entrepreneurs who champion growth and collaboration, not a silo mentality.
LONG-TERM VIABILITY It is important not to see entrepreneurialism as a graduate destination, but a career development point, where later entry might foster better
success. Encouraging all students to consider it as a viable option for the future is key, and this may come in other ways. For example, we run a Start-up Careers Fair, giving students access to start-ups who want to take on new talent, with minimal personal risk. Getting involved with competitions from an organisational perspective can also help students gain confidence in the process. Being involved in entrepreneurial projects helps build confidence in a future as an entrepreneur, even if it is not a student’s first career step. This experience also offers the opportunity to build networks, foster collaboration, gain insight into what makes a business pitch successful and receive mentorship – all within a supportive environment. We must take a pro-active role in recognising barriers and misconceptions of entrepreneurialism and instead celebrate it as a valuable and viable future career path. We may not be the business experts, but we have a responsibility to take a bird’s eye view of the complex maze of resources, networks and inevitable dead-ends. One way we can do this is to take stock of the community that exists, however big or small, and give students the confidence to access it, whatever their context. With thanks to: Henry Gomersall, Technical Director, SmartAcoustics Sadiq Jaffer, CEO, Opsian Dr Jennie Flint, Senior Commercialisation Associate, Cambridge Enterprise Layla Hosseini-Gerami, COO, and Sangjn Lee, COO, Downing Enterprise Pat Corteen, Event Manager, University of Cambridge Careers Service
emilypacker@careers.cam.ac.uk careers.cam.ac.uk
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ENTERPRISE ENTERPRISE AND AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP ENTREPRENEURSHIP
a partnership approach to SUPPORTING INDEPENDENT WORKERS
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King’s Careers & Employability has partnered with IPSE, The Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-employed, to provide expertise, support and training to King’s College London’s (KCL) students and graduates. Kate Daubney, Head of King’s Careers & Employability, and Rebecca Willey, Head of Education and Training at IPSE, outline the benefits of the partnership.
he self-employed workforce has grown close to 5 million people in the UK and students and graduates are more frequently pursuing this way of working. Whether individuals identify as being self-employed, a freelancer, a contractor, working for themselves, an entrepreneur or founder, The Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-employed (IPSE) represents all independent workers. As a membership body, IPSE’s mission is to champion the self-employed sector.
CAREER CONTEXT Many universities have an enterprise team but may lack specialists in freelancing, and students can often struggle to understand what it means to be a freelance professional as distinct from an entrepreneur.
Students and graduates are faced with a rapidly changing world of work and often struggle to know where to start. We are able to provide them with an overview of the skills and knowledge they need to set up their own businesses and ensure they are aware of the risks and rewards of being their own boss. Rebecca Willey, Head of Education and Training, IPSE
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While King’s offers postgraduate study leading to careers where freelancing is common, such as creative and media industries, digital asset management or game software design, freelancing is increasingly required for professions such as dentistry. It is also becoming a significant factor in careers for research students choosing a portfolio career with or outside academia. At King’s, IPSE provides advice and training on a wide range of topics, through tailored workshops, to enable students to explore what freelancing means in their career context. To accompany on-campus training, students and graduates also receive free IPSE student membership, which offers business resources, further support and networking opportunities. This better prepares them for the changing freelancing landscape, building confidence in how to operate legally and efficiently, find higher quality clients and access career development support once they are working independently.
SELF-EMPLOYMENT CHOICES Resources from IPSE have been consolidated with new content in King’s digital provision, giving students a navigable resource to explore and plan their future self-employment choices at their own pace, supported by in-person guidance and workshops from the team. IPSE have also helped King’s Careers & Employability team to improve their careers advice around self-employment choices, and launched a panel event featuring self-employed professionals.
The partnership with IPSE has provided specialist advice to students across faculties and programmes to supplement the academic knowledge they are taught, with the necessary enterprise and business skills required to successfully be selfemployed. Kate Daubney, Head of King’s Careers & Employability Finally, King’s is also developing resources to help students understand the overlaps between working independently and being employed. Intersecting King’s Entrepreneurship Institute’s 7 Skills of an Entrepreneurial Mindset with IPSE’s resources and King’s Careers & Employability’s KASE Framework of extracted employability, the careers team are developing videos and e-learning on relationship building, resilience and concept validation. These resources help students strengthen their abilities in this area and see how experiences in one type of workplace enable success in another. As graduates aspire to greater career agility and a more varied working life, similarities between apparently different career types will build holistic connections and help students and graduates appreciate the transferable value across all their future career identities.
ENTERPRISE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
delivered within the curriculum promote understanding of how an enterprising tendency can be expressed through a variety of pathways available to graduates, not just through business start-up.
ALUMNI SUPPORT
Graham Whyborn, Rish Baruah (Careers Consultants) and Diana Pasek-Atkinson (Enterprise Adviser) discuss how they created an Enterprise Task Group and worked collaboratively to promote enterprise to students at Nottingham Trent University (NTU).
developing a Hive OF ENTERPRISE ACTIVITY We established an Enterprise Task Group at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) over two years ago. The group comprises representatives from the employability and enterprise teams, who work together to raise awareness and increase entrepreneurial activity amongst students and graduates. Prior to the founding of the task group, both teams were independently delivering enterprise activity. The group was formed to bring various strands together, developing and managing effective relationships and creating synergy between enterprise and careers. Members of the group were carefully selected to ensure representation from both employability and enterprise departments, a range of roles and grades, and staff from NTU’s main campuses.
FLEXIBLE ENVIRONMENT Representation on enterprise comes from The Hive, NTU’s Centre for Entrepreneurship and Enterprise, which offers support and expertise in business start-up and self-employment. Open to NTU students, graduates and anyone with a viable idea to pursue, The Hive offers a flexible and creative working environment, mentoring and training programmes, and strong support networks. Whilst there is considerable expertise in The Hive, the team has only 3.5 enterprise advisers: the challenge is limited resource to increase awareness and access.
As well as increasing awareness within the curriculum, the Enterprise Task Group was eager to engage students exploring self-employment as a career option through extra-curricular activities. Success with the Hive was developed, initially targeting Business School students. The event featured alumni of The Hive who shared their experiences and advice with students and offered opportunities to network. This successful pilot has been adapted and tailored for other specialisms. The group also instigated an annual event, Go Your Own Way, which takes place in the last week of the academic year, offering support to students preparing to graduate and considering working for themselves. In addition to featuring alumni from The Hive, this has been supported by our partners IPSE (The Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed), drawing on their additional knowledge and resources.
WIDER AWARENESS A pilot programme of Career Meet-Ups as part of the student induction programme within Art and Design has also introduced the enterprise agenda to first year creative students. Naturally, this raises the spectre of freelancing, collaboration and portfolio working; introducing these concepts from term one has enabled signposting to further support. The Enterprise Task Group has achieved wider awareness of enterprise and The Hive. Events and activities now feature in virtual learning environments, and the group are collaborating to deliver further tailored online learning resources.
NTU’s top 5 tips for devising successful enterprise support 1. Set up a collaborative task group representing both enterprise and employability 2. Engage with academics across a range of subject areas – not just business! 3. Mind your language – communicate that enterprise isn’t just about start-up
4. Devise extracurricular events to inspire and engage 5. Use alumni and guest speakers to share their stories and celebrate successes
PARTNERSHIP WORKING
/showcase/the-hive-at-ntu
Working in partnership with the employability team and academic colleagues, enterprise has been embedded into the curriculum. This offers students an introduction to aspects of working for themselves together with increased awareness of the support available from The Hive. The lectures and interactive workshops
employability@ntu.ac.uk thehive@ntu.ac.uk @NTUTheHive
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nothing ventured NOTHING GAINED
In a world where entrepreneurship is somewhat synonymous with risk, should we practise what we preach? Kirsty Badrock, Entrepreneurship Coordinator in Student Futures (Careers and Employability), explores the dynamic changes made to the University of Chester’s Venture Programme in a bid to raise student engagement.
t is difficult to pinpoint the exact moment the Venture Programme came into being. Since 2011, the development of an extracurricular programme to support students interested in self-employment could be described as an evolutionary process. After we had trialled a range of options, the best bits were taken and packaged together to create a cohesive, structured programme aimed at developing entrepreneurial capacity. Branded as Venture in 2014, there was now a clear pathway for students and graduates, from all disciplines and at all levels of study, to follow.
A LOCAL
ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEM HAS
NATURALLY EMERGED
However, while Venture engaged more students each year, within the landscape of TEF, funding demands, widening participation targets and with the Graduate Outcomes survey on the horizon, there was a stirring feeling that a change of direction was needed.
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EMBRACING CHANGE In the summer of 2018, in a bid to not only survive the storm but to flourish in its wake, significant changes to both our approach and delivery were introduced: 1. Flexible delivery Students now have the opportunity to engage in over 50 interventions, ranging from one-to-one advice to interactive workshops delivered by entrepreneurs, industry partners and professional services. The sessions are delivered across nine modules covering topics such as sales and marketing, legal matters and business responsibility. This approach offers students the flexibility to create a bespoke programme of support. 2. Grant scheme We moved towards a more targeted approach to engage with students from widening participation backgrounds, working under the Office for Students’ Access and Participation Plan through the introduction of the Santander Entrepreneurship Fund (SEF). Wholly sponsored by Santander Universities UK, the SEF enables eligible students to carry out activities, purchase items or gain fullyfunded office space, to help them to build
WE HAVE CREATED A MODEL WHICH HAS their freelance career or start up a business. By applying to the fund, eligible applicants commit to attending at least six hours’ worth of Venture Programme activities.
extracurricular programme accessible to all is nigh on impossible. So, across the 2018/19 academic year, we filmed 26 sessions and made these available to view online.
3. Going to the local Following a review of student feedback across the years, we observed that students place a lot of value on peer-to-peer learning and through connecting with those who have been through the programme themselves. In response, we launched the Venture Network, which is a monthly meet-up hosted in a local restaurant or bar. This brings together current participants, Venture alumni and the local business community to connect, share ideas and network. Throughout the event students can practise their networking skills and take part in enterprise-enhancing activities within a real-world context, outside of a formal classroom environment. A local entrepreneurial ecosystem has naturally emerged.
IMPACT
4. Video capture With an increasing number of satellite sites, clashes with timetabled lectures and conscious that we are competing with other demands on students’ time, delivering an
We have created a model which has raised student engagement, retains contact with our alumni and strengthens our partnerships within the local business community. When compared with 2015/16, there was a 100% increase in participants over the course of the 2018/19 academic year, and a 54% increase on the previous year. Additionally, 89% of Venture participants (full-time, undergraduate, home students) were from widening participation backgrounds, marking an increase from 70% in 2016/17. Could it be that more students are now considering business start-up? Perhaps. Could it be that students are now more aware of the need to develop enterprise skills and commercial awareness? Possibly. What we do know is that student engagement increased significantly through increased programme flexibility and accessibility, the introduction of a business grant scheme, the opportunity for students to discuss their ideas within a different learning environment
RAISED STUDENT ENGAGEMENT, RETAINS
CONTACT WITH OUR ALUMNI
AND STRENGTHENS OUR PARTNERSHIPS
WITHIN THE LOCAL BUSINESS COMMUNITY – or owing to a combination of these developments. At the time of writing, real momentum has taken hold and engagement has increased again by 62%. The risk paid off; a ‘comfortable’ number of participants soared to ‘impressive’. However, we know it is highly likely we will need to change course again. Venture itself is fluid and innovative in nature. The programme has been the platform to test, try and pilot ideas. We have had successes and failures. We have been proactive and diverse. We have sought out opportunities, explored and exploited them. We have taken the odd risk. With that, we contend that entrepreneurship programmes need to be run in an entrepreneurial way.
k.badrock@chester.ac.uk
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side hustling: BUILDING PASSIONS, PENSIONS AND POSSIBILITIES
WHAT DID OUR DATA SHOW US? Our research showed that the largest group side hustling are Gen-Z and Millennials. 49% of side hustlers say their job is primarily to earn income and develop a career but feel their side hustle is another/ new passion. We also found (perhaps unsurprisingly) that managing side hustling is hard work. Since a side hustle is on top of a full time role or study, side hustlers spend longer working overall than nonhustlers. The data showed 48% of side-hustling adults work more than 40 hours a week (versus 29% more on average across all those in work) and 25% of side hustlers work over 51 hours (versus 12% on average). Juggling a side hustle alongside another job, family and study becomes a complex work/life balance that needs a focused approach. We also found that 30% of men versus 21% of women have side hustles. However, women are catching up: 62% of side hustling women have started up in the past two years (versus 48% of side hustling men).
SIDE HUSTLING GIVES A
SENSE OF LIBERATION
According to recent research, one in four people are working on a business outside of their main job. In this article, Dr Naeema Pasha, Director of Careers and founder of Henley Business School’s World of Work at the University of Reading, explores the side hustling phenomenon and considers the implications for careers service delivery.
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re you working on a side business while doing a main job? If you are, you’re one of a growing number of side hustlers. Findings from a research project I have worked on at Henley Business School show that side hustling is a growing phenomenon with important implications for careers delivery.
According to our research, one in four adults have a side hustle. We also found that students are increasingly developing a side hustle while at university, ranging from t-shirt selling, photography, DJ-ing, and even breeding exotic pets.
STUDENTS ARE INCREASINGLY
DEVELOPING A SIDE HUSTLE WHILE AT UNIVERSITY, RANGING FROM T-SHIRT SELLING, PHOTOGRAPHY, DJ-ING, AND EVEN BREEDING EXOTIC PETS 18
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FROM THE REGULAR ONE-COMPANY MINDSET EMPLOYER VIEWS Do employers like side hustlers? The benefits can be two-way, if done well. Our findings showed that employers who embrace side hustling employees value their entrepreneurial and creative skills, recognising these as transferable into their workplace. Building trust and relationship management with an employer is critical, however. Both parties should draw up a list of what is and isn't agreed, ideally by creating a new 'framework of agreement’ to clearly show where commitment and freedom boundaries lie.
IMPLICATIONS FOR CAREERS SERVICE DELIVERY We need to recognise that some people are looking at ‘career’ as multi-faceted. Graduates leaving university now will know that they are probably unlikely to get a job with full lifelong security, and that they will face greater world of work uncertainty. Side hustling is a way of managing job uncertainty by bringing some safety into a career. Not only does it bring in extra income, but it also offers the opportunity to develop new skills, explore new passions and, importantly, allows individuals to feel more ownership and control over their career journey. Side hustling also gives a sense of liberation from the regular one-company mindset. We have started to incorporate this into our work at Henley. We now run side hustling workshops with a particular focus on mindset and practical advice. These fill quickly, probably because they appeal to the growing numbers of entrepreneurial students. I feel the outcomes of our research demonstrate that university careers services might want to think about developing a side hustling offer – on the side of course.
/in/dr-naeema-pasha @naeema_pasha
ENTERPRISE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Maria Dobrzanska and Katie Cliff, based in the Careers Team at Leeds Beckett University, highlight how institutions can use their networks to create a comprehensive enterprise offer that meets a growing demand from students and graduates.
mighty oaks from little acorns grow: REBUILDING AN ENTERPRISE OFFER
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wo years ago, our Student Enterprise Academy was disbanded and responsibility for provision transferred to the Careers Team. This was in the context of limited staff resource and an expanding course portfolio in the arts, where self-employment is a natural step after graduation. Recent destinations data shows around a fifth of our alumni progressing in this direction, and our career readiness survey data reinforced it as a ‘high need’ among students. Since then we have rebuilt our enterprise offer from scratch.
WORKING
WITH ACADEMIC
‘CHAMPIONS’
HAS BEEN ESSENTIAL IN BUILDING A CULTURE
WHERE ENTERPRISE
EDUCATION IS TRULY A
SHARED RESPONSIBILITY
BUILDING AN ENTERPRISE CULTURE From the outset we sought academic partners with experience in this area. Working with academic ‘champions’ has been essential in building a culture where enterprise education is truly a shared responsibility. This approach has helped us identify and broaden the reach of existing opportunities for enterprise education in the curriculum. One example is our new Creative Entrepreneur Placement Scheme, which gives students the option to spend their placement year building their business. Academic staff were integral in securing
funding and approval for this initiative and have showcased it at academic forums, encouraging others across the university to adopt it. We have introduced a similar concept within our Career Cartographies module, which has an enterprise option as part of the placement pathway.
CREATING SCALABLE SUPPORT Our SME and alumni networks have also played a crucial role in shaping and delivering our offer. Fostering relationships with recent graduates at early stages of start-up has given us insight into the support that our budding entrepreneurs need. We have established a one-to-one mentoring programme. Mentors are two to three years in to their entrepreneurial journeys, so their early triumphs and challenges are recent and their advice both pragmatic and motivational. Our retention rate of 90% demonstrates the commitment of mentees to the programme. Developing our online provision ensures support is accessible to all students and graduates. We have invested in e-learning materials and incorporated enterprise support within our online career modules, so our offer is scalable and wide reaching. In 2019, over 900 students and graduates engaged with our online tools.
SMALL STEPS TO SUSTAINABILITY We have also drawn on the expertise of established providers in youth enterprise education. Through collaboration with The Prince’s Trust we offer regular enterprise courses on campus and participants are able to refine their business concepts, explore the practicalities of
Without the partnership between The Prince’s Trust and Leeds Beckett University I wouldn’t have had the confidence or knowledge needed to start up a business History student running a business and enhance their networks, leading to collaborations between participants. Over the last year demand for the courses increased by over 50%, supported by excellent feedback from students and partners. Taking small steps to build our offer has enabled us to generate a rich enterprise ecosystem, which is both scalable and sustainable. By building partnerships and diversifying support we have engaged over 1,000 students across our university in a single year – far greater than we could have hoped for two years ago. The acorn is growing!
/in/mariadobrzanska /in/katiecliff
The CAF comprises nine individual creative attributes, grouped into three overarching capacities:
ENTERPRISE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
a creative framework FOR ENTERPRISE AND EMPLOYABILITY
Richard Sant, Head of Careers & Employability at University of the Arts London (UAL), outlines the Creative Attributes Framework, which articulates a combined model for employability and enterprise education.
A
t University of the Arts London (UAL), our overall aim is to enable students to make a living doing what they love. In the arts and creative sector, the data shows that this often means either self-employment or employment in small businesses and start-ups; only a relatively small percentage of graduates find recruitment in larger fashion houses or digital and media organisations. The challenge then is to ensure our students are developing a combination of both employability and entrepreneurial skills, to equip them for whatever their future career path may entail.
MAKING THINGS HAPPEN First, we know that it is important that students can demonstrate that they are proactive enough to ‘make things happen’. This could be in the form of undertaking a project, taking their practice out in to the community, doing some freelance work, or networking their way to an internship. We would characterise this type of personal agency as a combination of proactivity, agility and an enterprising mindset. SHOWCASING ABILITIES Whether freelancing or in employment, our graduates will be communicating their ideas to others and contributing to collective creative processes on a constant basis. This is a rolling process of ideating, showcasing, articulating and sharing. This capacity to showcase and communicate ideas and collaborate starts with the ability to develop one’s own narrative, and is combined with the ability to inspire others. NAVIGATING CHANGE Finally, our students will be facing a future shaped by rapid change. Unpredictability demands that we aspire for our graduates to be resilient and confident in the face of uncertainty (and occasional inevitable rejection) and always to remain curious and creative.
The Creative Attributes Framework (CAF) was developed in response to this challenge.
MAPPING THE STUDENT JOURNEY The powerful thing about the CAF is that it is not something that needs to be ‘embedded’ into the curriculum, since the attributes that it identifies actually originate in the creative curriculum – a curriculum that is wholly defined by experiential learning. Instead, we needed to enable students to reflect on the fact that they are already in the process of developing these creative attributes. To this end we work with course teams to map where in the student journey they will most likely be developing which attributes. We have also just launched an online tool called MyCAF to facilitate self-directed student reflection.
WE WORK WITH COURSE TEAMS TO MAP WHERE IN THE STUDENT JOURNEY THEY WILL MOST LIKELY BE DEVELOPING CREATIVE
ATTRIBUTES
In 2017, we created an innovative extracurricular environment for our students to develop their creative attributes, through the opening of not just a shop. This is simultaneously a retail space (selling student and graduate work) and an enterprise learning environment. Through the shop we can explore topics such as intellectual property, pricing work, visual business planning, freelancing and more – all in a practical, authentic and engaging way.
We also employ experimental pedagogies such as enterprise object-based learning and can set shop-related live briefs into curriculum tasks. Through the development of the CAF and the introduction of the not just a shop space, we have brought together enterprise and employability learning in both curricular and extracurricular contexts, and started to build an ecosystem of support for our students. Hopefully, this will equip them to thrive in their future careers – whether that is in self-employment, employment, or (as is often the case) in rich and complex combinations of both. @notjustashop r.sant@arts.ac.uk notjustashop.arts.ac.uk
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AGCAS ENTERPRISE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP TASK GROUP
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Helen Hook, Enterprise Educator at the University of Birmingham and Chair of the AGCAS Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Task Group, provides an overview of the work of the group in supporting members’ professional practice.
he AGCAS Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Task Group represents the professional interests of higher education careers services in relation to enterprise, entrepreneurship and related areas. As a group, we contribute to the professional development of careers staff and the overall student experience through a range of methods and by collaborating with wider networks, such as Enterprise Educators UK (EEUK) and the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education (NCEE). Enterprise education has never been more important due to changes in the labour market and the need for students to develop future skills and behaviours, whilst also being able to develop a growth mindset and increase their levels of self-efficacy.
VALUABLE INSIGHTS In 2019, almost 100 AGCAS members responded to our task group survey to share valuable insights in response to a range of questions. We asked members how the delivery of enterprise and entrepreneurship support was structured within their institutions. 65% of Russell Group respondents stated that Careers and Employability has responsibility for enterprise and entrepreneurship, whereas
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just over half (51%) of non-Russell Group stated that they have specialist Enterprise/ Entrepreneurship Units. Within the ‘other’ category, 15 responses commented that they had no specific department supporting this activity. When we asked about confidence in offering guidance to student entrepreneurs, 50% of survey respondents fell across the categories which swayed more towards the ‘not feeling confident or undecided’. We looked at the data to see if there were any trends and whether there were links between the numbers of years in job, full or part time employment, and awareness of institutional policy statements: • Advisers with fewer years’ experience tend to feel more confident offering guidance but 22% are still undecided. • Those working three days a week are the least confident in offering guidance with 70% not confident and 10% undecided. • Generally, advisers that are aware of any type of policy are more confident in offering guidance to student entrepreneurs with enterprise policies being particularly effective in boosting confidence. • However, there is a small percentage with both entrepreneurship and employability policy awareness who are not confident at all.
AGCAS TASK GROUP
FUTURE WORK We will continue to review the feedback shared within the survey to inform the development of AGCAS’s professional development offer in this area. The group is also committed to working with EEUK on an introductory enterprise and entrepreneurship training event for careers professionals, powered by EEUK’s Fast Track to Enterprise Education & Practice workshop. We are also planning to create and distribute two newsletters per academic year. And we will continue to respond to enterprise and entrepreneurship-related queries posted to the AGCAS-SERVICELINK JISCMail discussion list. We are always keen to be working in the most effective way for AGCAS members. If you engage with students who have an interest in enterprise and entrepreneurship and have any other ideas of things the group could be doing to help you, please do get in touch. Contact the AGCAS Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Task Group
Useful resources: • QAA Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Education: Guidance for UK Higher Education Providers • AdvanceHE Essential Frameworks for Enhancing Student Success
ENTERPRISE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
AGCAS CREATIVE INDUSTRIES TASK GROUP AGCAS TASK GROUP
• Psychological barriers and ‘imposter syndrome’: our experience tells us that the idea of working for yourself, the prospect of initiating one’s own career trajectory, and the fear of working ‘alone’ in a competitive world are daunting for most students. • Mindset: not all of our clients will work for themselves, but arguably all are creators, innovators and entrepreneurs (whether they realise this or not). Some students may need to consider unexpected outcomes, risk and chance events, in line with the Chaos Theory of Careers.
LANGUAGE IS IMPORTANT When defining our terms of reference, we opted not to refer purely to ‘employment outcomes’, nor did we want to focus on ‘best practice’. These phrases were regarded as restrictive for a diverse sector. It is far better, in our eyes, to acknowledge ‘good practice’ and a variety of outcomes, which may include freelancing and start-up, amongst other possibilities. The same applies to ‘networking’; this is an important skill, but the phrase lacks appeal and is off-putting to many.
KEY ISSUES FOR ENTREPRENEURS IN THE CREATIVE SECTOR
Rish Baruah, Careers Consultant at Nottingham Trent University, is Chair of the AGCAS Creative Industries Task Group. In this article, he outlines the work of the task group in legitimising freelancing, self-employment and start-up as credible graduate outcomes for creative subjects.
T
he AGCAS Creative Industries Task Group (CITG) was formed in 2019 by AGCAS members working within a variety of creative subject areas and industries, including music, visual arts, fashion, humanities, design and production. Higher education institutions from across the country are represented on the group as well as a co-opted member from the Creative Industries Federation. This diverse membership offers real insight into regional and sector trends, including industries where freelancing is a requirement or increasingly common. As a group, one of our core aims is to showcase the wide variety of graduate outcomes that are possible within the creative sector, with a significant focus on freelancing, self-employment and start-up in addition to ‘traditional’ employment outcomes.
CAREERS SERVICE DELIVERY Amongst the themes identified from our initial task group meetings, we agreed that the following factors are important in careers service delivery: • Enterprise education: many students and graduates might not recognise themselves as entrepreneurs, even though some will already be freelancing, selling, designing and making. This leads to the next issue of…
The CITG has identified the following key issues for students and graduates who wish to establish themselves as freelancers or self-employed: • Costing and pricing: new entrants to the creative industries are often unsure about how much to charge; in a sector where some are pressured to work for free, many don’t know how to appropriately value their time and expertise. • Knowledge: students are expert practitioners but may lack knowledge and experience of business practice such as marketing, invoicing, intellectual property, and defining terms and conditions for work undertaken. • Wellbeing: some clients work multiple jobs or feel pressure to take on as many clients as possible. There are also pressures inherent in working solo; creatives sometimes feel as though they are operating in isolation. CITG is committed to developing good practice for AGCAS members to use in their work with students and graduates, through research, knowledge and liaison with sector organisations. We are also planning a Creative Careers Showcase for 2020, to share our expertise within a diverse sector.
Find out more about the AGCAS Creative Industries Task Group
With additional contributions from the following members of CITG: Andrew Garfoot (British and Irish Modern Music Institute) Elli Whitefoot (Leeds Art University) Ben Robertson (Leeds Beckett University)
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ENTERPRISE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
in conversation with GARETH TRAINER, CHAIR OF EEUK
Gareth Trainer is Assistant Director (Enterprise and Entrepreneurship) at Newcastle University Careers Service and the first Chair of EEUK who is also a member of AGCAS. Enterprise Educators UK (EEUK) is the UK’s leading independent membership organisation for enterprise and entrepreneurship educators and start-up support professionals. EEUK works to support staff employed by member institutions through the provision of training, resources, professional recognition and career development opportunities.
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What got you involved with the work of EEUK? I first got involved in 2005. In the early 2000s, if you were involved in enterprise or entrepreneurship in higher education, there weren’t many sources of help and support; we still needed to address key questions around how to help staff to create better and more efficient ways of supporting students and highlight good practice in order to inspire others. The EEUK network has much to be proud of: it’s now the norm to see enterprise and entrepreneurship support functions in lots of different parts of UK universities, including careers services. About five years ago I decided to put myself forward for a Board position as I felt it was time to give something back to the organisation, having benefited so much from its support. What’s the difference between enterprise and entrepreneurship? Since 2012, this question has been answered by the QAA's Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Education: Guidance for UK Higher Education Providers, which has
become the home of the relevant definitions in and beyond the UK. In summary, enterprise refers to the skills, attitudes, competencies (the parts of employability) that make you innovative, creative, adaptable and resilient. A lot of people talk about enterprise as a mindset and an approach to educating summarised by the concept of learning by doing. People get confused between enterprise and entrepreneurship because one of the most popular ways of exploring enterprise in the classroom is through the simulated (and in some cases actual) creation of new products, services and businesses. However, enterprise is distinct from entrepreneurship because it is possible to be enterprising without being an entrepreneur. One of the big debates of the moment is whether enterprise and employability have become the same thing. Most universities now have frameworks of what attributes they want graduates to offer to employers. When you show these to enterprise educators, we see a huge overlap with the attributes they are supporting students to develop.
Enterprise is fundamental to but different from entrepreneurship in that, like employment, entrepreneurship is one way in which you can use your enterprise, but it is at your own cost, for your own benefit and at your own risk. How are the synergies between AGCAS and EEUK translating in practice? Working together is crucial so we can provide the support that our members need to enhance their offer and make a difference for our students. One of our missions is to make it very clear to colleagues across the AGCAS membership that by supporting employability they are developing enterprise. As such, there are many aspects of our offer that AGCAS members can engage with and benefit from, regardless of which part of the careers service they work in. The new EEUK Fellowship takes no account of job title; we have used occupational standards to define the competencies of an enterprise educator, many of which will be commonplace for careers and employability professionals, demonstrating how much the profession has matured and diversified. Tell us about the HE-BCI Survey and its review. As one key outcome of enterprise and entrepreneurship education, the HE-BCI data relating to graduate start-ups has become the DLHE/Graduate Outcomes equivalent for enterprise educators. Like any survey it is
not without its limitations. HESA have launched a review of HE-BCI and I’m delighted to be joining the review’s Steering Group to help represent the EEUK and AGCAS community of practitioners and their work. This is an important piece of work as the new Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) draws many of its metrics from the HE-BCI survey, including graduate start-up figures. Research England also uses elements of the data to inform the allocation of the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF), which finances much of the engagement, enterprise, innovation and entrepreneurship activities and staff in many higher education institutions. The first version of KEF will be limited in terms of recognising knowledge exchange and economic impact generated by students and graduates, but it is hoped that through revisions to HE-BCI and the introduction of new sector-driven metrics, the non-startup outcomes of enterprise education can be included and influence a university’s contribution to the economy and society more broadly. Speaking of data, what are your thoughts on performance indicators around job creation, the new Graduate Outcomes survey and LEO? There’s a real opportunity here to understand universities’ performance. Our educators support start-ups to create their own graduate level outcomes, but also to grow and provide work experience and graduate employment opportunities for future cohorts of students. Hopefully this should be detectable in the data, not least through the creation of new occupations on the back of new innovations and new business practices. The data on independent professionals and freelancers should be visible (at least for
now) in both the Graduate Outcomes and HE-BCI surveys, as well as in the LEO data. We know from early conversations with HESA around #NewDLHE that there’s an intention to make it more intuitive for graduates to talk about self-employed work as well as any ‘traditional’ employment in the new Graduate Outcomes survey, so we are keen to see the results. I think we will see the LEO dataset developing over time and we are keen to be part of the conversation around how this data helps us to better understand the journey into self-employment or business start-up.
ONE OF OUR MISSIONS IS TO MAKE IT VERY CLEAR TO COLLEAGUES ACROSS THE AGCAS MEMBERSHIP THAT BY SUPPORTING
EMPLOYABILITY
THEY ARE DEVELOPING ENTERPRISE What should we be doing now to make sure we, and our students, are ready for the future? I think it will become increasingly obvious that a student’s perception of roles, jobs and careers are very much rooted in selfdetermination and the desire to create their own jobs that have impact and add value. We need to be enterprising in the way we support students to think about, shape and plan their futures. This might mean developing new approaches, resources and platforms that respond to their changing expectations of what their ‘career’ holds for them. The more we can think about and test these implications now, the better prepared we will be. Developing entrepreneurial competences in our students will give them the best start in their graduate careers, help them shape their own future and respond positively to the challenges and opportunities along the way. By working together, EEUK and AGCAS can make this happen. Find out if your university is a member of EEUK Gareth Trainer was in conversation with Naomi Oosman-Watts, AGCAS Director of Data Insights. PHOENIX FEBRUARY 2020
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The 48Hr StartUp: WHAT A DIFFERENCE A WEEKEND MAKES Kate Woods, Career Consultant in King’s Business School at King’s College London, outlines a boot camp designed to encourage students to develop the fundamental mindsets useful to career management and entrepreneurship.
K
ing’s Business School is physically located next to the Entrepreneurship Institute (EI) and staff members from both entities are familiar with design thinking. The 48Hr StartUp sprang from collaboration and curiosity. Musing with EI colleagues in 2018, we developed a boot camp designed to introduce students to a structured problem-solving process. Over one weekend, students are set the challenge to learn enough skills to test a business idea and present it to judges. With no previous experience of coding, business or entrepreneurship, students use free, online tools to build viable entities and compete for prizes. In so doing they learn principles that can be applied to their own career management.
THE CHALLENGE Placed into teams and given a predetermined list of possible business ideas, students worked through the following stages: • Lean Start-up Behaviour: how to quickly test and prototype ideas • Customer Development: how to understand a problem your users or customers face • Minimum Viable Product: building products to test your idea – fast • Branding: how to build your own logo, typeface and colour palette • Growth Marketing: how to use Facebook to drive users to your product
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At the end of the weekend, teams are judged on the overall presentation of their idea with winners awarded Amazon vouchers. The prospect of winning a prize was a distinct attraction during marketing and an incentive during the event. Facing the time constraint of a weekend, students were visibly excited about how much they had achieved in such a short time. At the end of day one, teams decided to work into the evening launching their websites with results shared on our WhatsApp group with much pride. The underlying message is that, the next time they have a spare weekend, students can do something fruitful and productive, whether developing a business idea or their career plans.
DESIGN THINKING At every stage of delivery and planning we tried to embody design thinking. From the outset, we shared with students that, as facilitators, we were prototyping the idea of a start-up weekend. Throughout the event, the career management aspects of design thinking tools were highlighted and woven into conversations around entrepreneurial skills. We ran the first iteration in 2019 with 100% attendance on both days. Hosted and promoted by a careers consultant, the project drew in students unfamiliar with entrepreneurship, thus extending awareness of the EI. Similarly, EI facilitators and growth hackers drew students towards Careers when they might not have engaged with us before. As a result of the initial event, EI and King’s Business School agreed to explore more iterations of the project and consider other joint activities. We intend to double the size this academic year to 40 participants in March 2020. As a case study in exploring how enterprise activity can be nurtured across structural boundaries, I think we have made a good start – and we have had excellent feedback from students. The conception, development and delivery of the event came from intrapreneurial and collaborative thinking within the Business School, with the support of line managers essential to the process. As the project develops we will extend participation to students from other faculties with a view to hosting a competition at scale. kate.woods@kcl.ac.uk /in/katewoods2
ENTERPRISE SUPPORTING AND INTERNATIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP STUDENTS
Cornelia Nelson, Employability Officer, and Amy Gerrard, Academic Lead for Employability and Placements, at the University of Liverpool, share how collaboration between the Careers Service and the School of the Arts led to increased student engagement in enterprise activities outside of existing business competitions formats.
engaging students WITH BRIGHT IDEAS
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tudent participation in central enterprise, entrepreneurship and competition activities has typically been low from students in the School of the Arts in comparison to other departments. Over the past 12 months, students from the school have shown limited interest in university-wide competitions and more interest in value-based events that involve entrepreneurial learning. The Bright Ideas programme builds on this trend.
AGENTS FOR CHANGE There is a growing demand to better understand what it means to be more enterprising. Offering students a wider variety of opportunities that will prepare them for different types of employment after university is critical. In the School of the Arts, this is particularly relevant to our musicians who wish to work on a self-employed basis, our architects who want to pursue freelance contracts and our English graduates who have plans to set up an independent publishing house or become an independent journalist. For these students, finding appropriate opportunities for them to become agents for change has the potential to make a transformative difference to their careers.
TAILORED OFFERING In response to this, the School of the Arts bid for extra funding to incorporate enterprise initiatives into the overall employability strategy. Working closely with the Careers Service to develop a tailored offering, Bright Ideas was formed. The programme aims to help students develop skills and attributes that
allow them to be innovative and to identify, initiate and successfully manage personal and work-related opportunities, including self-employment. The significance of Bright Ideas is that it follows the emerging school of thought that business competitions and competitive learning can be demotivating, especially for students who lack confidence, or those who are from a minority group (Brentnall 2019).
PROGRAMME DESIGN The programme was based on three themes – Dream it, Build It and Use it - drawn from the ETEE programme for Enterprise Educators. This led to the creation of workshops addressing creativity, market research, understanding customers and developing a business plan. Embedded within the scheme was an Enterprise Tour, which involved visiting and engaging with business support networks within the city of Liverpool, many of whom work alongside the university in supporting students during their start-up journey. Following completion of the training programme, students were awarded £250 to test their idea, with the condition that they vlog and evaluate their experience to achieve HEAR recognition.
EVALUATING SUCCESS One positive outcome has been the engagement from students of all backgrounds. Unlike traditional business competition models, we attracted students who self-identified as more quiet, reserved and less confident. We also achieved a gender balance, secured engagement from BAME students and, crucially for our collaboration, students with no prior
engagement in entrepreneurship participated. When offering competitive opportunities, we find that students struggle to develop their project/business idea due to the absence of any aftercare, particularly ongoing mentoring support. This has been crucial to the success of the programme: Bright Ideas has assisted students from the beginning, allowing them to develop, understand their idea thoroughly and prepare them to embark on their business idea, equipped with the tools developed as part of the programme. Ultimately, this grassroots experience has offered students from a wide range of backgrounds the opportunity to engage in enterprise, achieve a positive outcome and gain more confidence to engage in the wider university offer in the future.
THIS GRASSROOTS EXPERIENCE HAS OFFERED STUDENTS FROM A
WIDE RANGE OF BACKGROUNDS THE
OPPORTUNITY TO ENGAGE IN ENTERPRISE While the financial sustainability of the programme is a concern, we hope that its success will be recognised and supported again in the next academic year. @CorneliaNelso14 /in/cornelia-nelson @amygerr /in/amygerrard
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embedding the ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT Adriana De Bartolo, Alex Mesterton-Gibbons, and Charlotte Valkeniers, all part of the Careers Service and Industry Relationship team, tell us how Istituto Marangoni enables creative students to observe and partake in real-time entrepreneurial opportunities, supporting them to develop the tools and skills they need to flourish in the fashion and design industries.
I
stituto Marangoni (IM) has numerous international students on our BA courses in Fashion Design, Fashion Styling, Fashion Business or Interior Design. Initially, students are very focused on creative activities and design. Our challenge is to show them that commercial awareness is vital: they also need to understand how to run a business, market their future brand and promote and present themselves. Our courses are delivered in an experiential manner, applying theory to practice, in order to produce work-ready graduates. CV sessions and personal career plans are embedded in the curriculum, as are social media, personal branding and networking.
INDUSTRY CONNECTIONS The Careers Service encourages students to connect with industry from day one and gain experience by volunteering, taking part in work experience, and competing in international competitions, such as Mittelmoda, Woolmark Performance Challenge and ITS (International Talent Support). We also connect students and graduates with new businesses, since the best way to learn about running a start-up is by joining
IMMERSION IN AN ENVIRONMENT THAT PROMOTES EXPLORATION,
CREATIVITY AND INDIVIDUAL THOUGHT
HELPS STUDENTS REALISE HOW CRUCIAL BUSINESS KNOWLEDGE IS FOR ANY KIND OF PROFESSIONAL IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY and working with a newly-formed company. Towards the end of the year, fashion students can enrol in the annual Fashion Brand Incubator Programme, which provides them with a week-long business-centric course about launching a brand. Topics include branding and marketing, sales, buying strategies, range planning and business planning, taught by industry professionals and IM tutors. Students work on a business plan throughout the week and pitch their idea to an industry panel composed of professionals. This year, we have decided to extend the programme by another week to incorporate the legal aspects of running a business too. Our industry connections have been keen to be part of the programme, thanks to the trust and professional relationships we have
built with them over the years. We have had a fair response from students with 27 registered, 17 participating in workshops and eight pitching to the panel.
BUSINESS KNOWLEDGE Every student is supported 360 degrees by IM throughout their journey. Immersion in an environment that promotes exploration, creativity and individual thought helps students realise how crucial business knowledge is for any kind of professional in the fashion industry, and how vital an effective business strategy is to a brand’s development. One challenge we have faced is the predominance of international students on our courses, meaning that we have to provide students with tools they can use in their home countries, as well as in the UK business context. Working rights and visas also have an impact on the future of many of our students and their businesses. We are making strides to educate the industry on the importance of an international perspective. Of course, the current political scenario dictated by Brexit will impact the job market, and we will soon discover how. We are ready to face any future challenge, however, providing consistent and continuing support to all our students.
careerservice.london@istitutomarangoni.com istitutomarangoni.com/en/campus/london
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to provide training and resources for academic staff to support the embedding of enterprise and entrepreneurship in the curriculum.
PROGRAMME DELIVERY
supporting students TO CREATE THEIR OWN FUTURE
Glenda Martin, Employability Curriculum Unit Manager, outlines Ulster University’s UUCreate, a unique programme designed by Employability & Careers and co-delivered with university academics, industry experts and enterprise professionals to enhance the career prospects of creative arts and sports students.
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tudents from creative arts and sports courses progress into graduate employment at a lower rate than the national average (DLHE 2016/17). Institutional data revealed that students within these disciplines indicated an interest in portfolio careers, freelancing and self-employment. However, they did not have any structured enterprise or entrepreneurial support from the university.
MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH
To address this, Ulster University created UUCreate, a programme strategically designed to support students in raising career aspirations, develop enterprise and entrepreneurship skills and explore the potential opportunities that exist within a freelance or portfolio career, or self-employment. Led by Employability & Careers and with funding from Santander Universities, a multidisciplinary project team, including academic staff from the School of Arts and Humanities, School of Sports, Centre for Higher Education Research and Practice (CHERP), and the Ulster Business School, came together to design UUCreate. The key aims of the programme are to raise the confidence of students so they feel equipped with the skills to succeed when leaving university and
Students are given access to a suite of innovative online learning activities and engage in webinars, discussion boards and selfassessment exercises, which includes the JISC digital capability resource and an exclusive version of the Fingerprint Learning survey to analyse and strengthen enterprise skills and develop entrepreneurial potential.
THIS PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS THE
CLEAR NEED FOR ENTREPRENEURIAL EDUCATION IN LOCAL COMMUNITIES Following three weeks of online learning and direct engagement with Ulster alumni who have successfully transitioned into freelance or entrepreneurial careers, participants attend a two-day residential. Here, they are presented with a societal issue from three partner organisations and work together in multidisciplinary teams to develop a business solution that has commercial potential. To facilitate and support them in the process they attend a variety of masterclass workshops which include confidence and self-presentation, storytelling, design thinking, and funding and finance. The project team and industry experts work with the groups throughout the two days to offer guidance and support when required. For the concluding element of the residential, teams pitch their business solution to a panel of judges, which includes industry experts, representatives from the three partner organisations and senior university colleagues. The panel offers feedback and guidance to each team, along with a presentation to the three winning teams.
MEASURING SUCCESS In April 2019, 51 students participated in UUCreate. Evaluation of the programme was particularly positive. Students were asked to rate themselves at entry and exit point and reported significant improvements on a scale from ‘weak’ to ‘excellent’ in teamwork, developing ideas and making decisions, strategic thinking and risk taking. UUCreate has been widely disseminated both internally and externally, and has also been the catalyst for the design of a new Level 4, five-credit employability module Create Your Own Future which, in partnership with academic colleagues, will be embedded in the curriculum of several academic programmes of study at Ulster. Our experience of delivering this programme highlights the clear need for entrepreneurial education initiatives in local communities and businesses, the desire of students at all levels to learn about entrepreneurship and innovation and, crucially, that external stakeholders value access to the ‘new thinking’ offered via this talent pool. /in/glenda-martin g.martin1@ulster.ac.uk
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creating an ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEM
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Anna Levett, Assistant Head of Careers and Employment at the University of Hertfordshire, outlines how departments across the institution work together to create business support for all.
he University of Hertfordshire’s entrepreneurial vision runs through every part of our business, as we aim to be an internationally renowned business-facing university. We offer support to our students and graduates for three years after graduation, as well as to external businesses.
CAREER OPTIONS In 2014, the Enterprise and Careers teams merged to embed self-employment and business start-up as achievable and supported career options. Reporting to the Pro Vice-Chancellor for Business and International Development, the new team works as part of the School Engagement Teams (SET) with Enterprise, Careers and Employability Advisers and a Careers Officer linking to each academic school to provide support within the curriculum, as well as running events. Strong relationships with schools is essential to promote events and services and to gain time within modules. We work with our Business Development department on projects funded by several external agencies. With this funding we have offered additional enterprise support to more than 1,000 individuals since January 2018. We will launch a new-build Enterprise Hub in 2020, which includes an Incubation Centre, and we are setting up University Enterprise
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WE HAVE
Zones. We also work with the local Growth Hub and our Business School runs a Business Academy to create an ecosystem of support.
CHANGED THE LANGUAGE
SPARKING INTEREST
WE USE
Having the funds to start out or test an idea is a barrier for many of our students. To support them, we have developed awards they can apply for. We offer a Summer Award of up to £600 to enable students to develop a business idea over the summer. They might then apply for Enterprise Funding of up to £2,000, donated by our supporters. We offer funds to students completing a selfemployed placement as part of a sandwich degree, and to graduates on our Enterprise Graduate programme. Due to the subjects taught at Hertfordshire, we have many potential freelancers. However, very few attended our activities, so we have changed the language we use. Instead of just promoting business start-up, we now offer Focus on Freelancing sessions. We added a self-employment option to all our mock assessment centres and launched a Freelance Freeway Fund of up to £350, targeted at schools like Creative Arts. This has helped to highlight our support to freelancers and we have noticed an increase in certain schools engaging with us.
of our open office spaces and can request access to specialist equipment and a network of experts for ongoing support. A community of practice meeting is held once a fortnight, with support offered by a business adviser to discuss progress, potential partnerships and set action plans. We have now handed the project to our Business Development department to lead and more than 60 external businesses are currently involved. We have a strategy that starts with enterprise support as the educator and catalyst, ‘graduating’ to business support services for start-ups, micros and spin-outs. Our Employer Team offers recruitment support when they are ready to grow their business. Businesses give back to the university as guest speakers and make great inspirational case studies for students. The creation of an ecosystem has ensured we have a vibrant business community on campus, willing to support one another and the university.
COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
/in/annalevett
In 2017 we launched UH Incubation, a new initiative that means members can work in any
a.levett@herts.ac.uk @anna_levett
ENTERPRISE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
AT THE HEART OF DESIGNING THE CHALLENGE WAS THE NEED
TO SUPPORT STUDENTS WHO WISH TO
rising to the CHALLENGE OF START-UP
Abigail Brown, Careers Consultant at the University of Liverpool in London, and Hayley Jones, Student Enterprise Adviser at Loughborough University London, partnered with the start-up Seedrs to develop an entrepreneurship challenge as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, designed to provide a fun and engaging way for students to develop core skills.
T
here has been a lot of media coverage in recent years that graduates lack the skills needed to succeed in the workplace. Furthermore, a study by LinkedIn found millennials can expect to have four job changes by the time they are 32. Our role in supporting students to develop transferable skills has become even more critical for today’s job market.
REAL-LIFE CHALLENGE
After connecting through the London satellite campus careers network, we explored how we could collaborate on an activity that would enable students to work in teams on a real-life business challenge whilst developing core skills needed for the workplace. From this, the RAP (Research, Analyse and Present) Challenge was born. At the heart of designing the RAP Challenge was the need to support students who wish to create or run a start-up venture. We hoped that through this challenge, in combination with our holistic approach to embedding employability into the curriculum, students would have the experience and confidence to articulate their skills to employers.
CREATE OR RUN A START-UP VENTURE
There were a number of things that made the RAP challenge effective. • Genuine need: From the university point of view, we wanted to give students an opportunity to develop their skills. From the employer perspective, they had a genuine business need they were hoping to meet. Tessa Bryant, Head of PR at Seedrs, took a proactive approach and met with colleagues to identify a current business challenge the organisation was facing. Right from the beginning we wanted the students to work on something meaningful and know that their solution could make a real difference to business. • Time: The challenge took place over two weeks, with students brought together for two days. The first day consisted of introducing the challenge, selecting teams and running activities around team building and communication. The second day was the final, where the teams shared their solutions with a judging panel and a winning team was selected. Employers were actively involved over both days: introducing the question, being a part of the judging panel and providing invaluable feedback to each team. • Communication: Students worked in multidisciplinary teams, with students from diverse backgrounds across two universities. This sometimes presented challenges. However, we remained in regular contact, which enabled us to identify challenges quite quickly and support students to resolve them.
MEASURING CHANGE We provided opportunities throughout the challenge for students to reflect on their skills. Teams attended workshops to develop knowledge and receive feedback. Students also completed a ‘before and after’ skills audit to measure change and reflected on one or two things they could do over the next six months to foster further growth. Finally, students took part in group peer-to-peer feedback. As well as supporting students to develop the core RAP skills, the challenge presented a great opportunity to develop other skills such as team work, problem solving and commercial awareness, helping to make a new generation of graduates more employable than ever.
Abigail.brown@liverpool.ac.uk /in/abigailobrown H.Jones@lboro.ac.uk /in/hayley-jones
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enabling EXTRACURRICULAR ENTERPRISE FOR ALL
Amelia Reeves and Charlotte Hope are Enterprise Advisers based at Newcastle University Careers Service, where they work as part of the Enterprise Team. Here, they discuss Newcastle’s diverse enterprise offer, focusing on the intended outcomes, impact and challenges that stem from different activities. Newcastle University delivers a combination of in-curricular, co-curricular and extracurricular enterprise and entrepreneurship workshops, events and challengeled education. The provision is delivered through both one-to-one and one-to-many interventions, which services the whole institution. As a team we pride ourselves on our ability to deliver continuous positive outcomes through innovative pedagogical approaches.
We have been reflecting on our challenges to develop and strengthen our offer. We are now working to standardise our impact measurement methodology in order to ascertain which enterprise competencies are enhanced through each specific intervention. This will allow us to better compare our extracurricular offer and design new interventions for any gaps in our provision.
amelia.reeves@newcastle.ac.uk charlotte.hope@newcastle.ac.uk @dr_charlotteh
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one ACTION FOR IMPACT (AFI) WHAT IS IT? A collaborative, interdisciplinary training programme delivered as part of a residential or non-residential event, aimed at creating impact of all kinds from research. WHO IS IT FOR? Early Career Researchers (ECRs) and (some) PhD students from the four regional Northern Accelerator partner universities. AIM To support researchers to develop self-efficacy, innovative mindsets and enterprising behaviours that will positively result in taking action towards creating personal, societal and commercial impact. IMPACT AfI has supported the development of over 125 researchers and was shortlisted for a 2019 Educate North Award for Innovation. Two of the cohort alumni have already gone on to win categories in the Newcastle University Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Awards 2019. Culture change throughout the institutions is also a key success measure of the programme, highlighting the importance of researcher development alongside the hard outputs of research such as impact cases, spin out companies and grants awarded. CHALLENGES Working across four institutions to create a centralised programme was logistically challenging. This was solved by agreeing clear processes, carefully managing stakeholder expectations and ensuring ‘customer service’ was the priority in every action.
two
three
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NCL APPRENTICE
INNOVATION DAY
START UP COACHING
WHAT IS IT? A three stage enterprise competition where teams of students compete to win a share of £500 by addressing varied provocations, which require them to use their enterprise skills to design original solutions.
WHAT IS IT? Innovation Day is a one-day training event focused on healthcare innovation, design thinking and pitching, with a strong emphasis on citizen and start-up engagement. It is delivered as part of a network of Innovation Days across Europe, culminating in a European competition.
WHAT IS IT? Our Start-up Advisers offer bespoke one-to-one confidential coaching, and also lead peer-learning ‘huddles’ through which they facilitate small group coaching conversations.
WHO IS IT FOR? This competition is open to all undergraduate and postgraduate students from Newcastle University and attracts competitors from highly varied disciplines. AIM To enable students to enhance a wide range of enterprise competencies, including identifying opportunities, creative problem solving, commercial acumen and resilience. IMPACT 60 students took part in 2019. A competency questionnaire completed before and after competing demonstrated that the longer students progressed through the competition, the more their enterprise skills were strengthened. Those who reached the final round moved up by an average one point against all surveyed competencies. Written feedback demonstrated that participants’ self-confidence was enhanced by taking part and that they gained transferable skills for the future. Students also noted that working in diverse teams led to knowledge exchange. CHALLENGES Due to the parallels with the television show The Apprentice, this competition risks excluding introverted/less-confident students. Marketing strategies try and alleviate this by highlighting that students don’t need established ideas or a business background to join and that judges are constructive and friendly.
WHO IS IT FOR? It is open to all students from all disciplines, at all stages of study and from across all institutions in the North of England. AIM To promote healthcare innovation among university students across Europe and to engage students with the innovation process, potentially leading to entrepreneurial outcomes such as health based start-ups. IMPACT Newcastle University has trained over 200 students in healthcare innovation utilising the design thinking approach, within a bigger European network of over 6,000 students in the past four years. We have taken winning teams to both London and Paris to compete amongst the finest of healthcare innovators across Europe. CHALLENGES Creating a programme of activity that allows for student engagement with citizens and external stakeholders, and ensuring that the problem identification element is strong within the innovation process. Given the scope of the programme, it can be difficult to promote and recruit students to attend and the value of the training needs to be articulated clearly.
WHO IS IT FOR? This offer is for students and recent graduates of Newcastle University who are developing early stage business ideas. AIM To support students to understand the viability of their early stage ideas, enhance entrepreneurial intentions and ultimately lead to new sustainable business start-ups. IMPACT From the HE Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey 2017/18, on 31 July 2018 there were 186 START UP supported businesses currently trading, with a combined annual turnover of £41 million. A total of 538 full-time equivalent jobs have been created and over £14 million of external investment has been raised between them. A total of 411 one-to-one appointments and 7 huddles were delivered between March-December 2019. CHALLENGES Demonstrating the value of market research and lean methodology application within one-to-ones to enable students to take ownership of the development of their business ideas. Encouraging students to have the confidence to step outside of their comfort zones and explore sustainable business models. In addition, the logistics behind organising small group huddles due to complex student schedules.
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PPD
ENTERPRISE SUPPORTING AND INTERNATIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP STUDENTS focus on
entrepreneurship and career development FOR CREATIVE STUDENTS Iain Morrison, Senior Lecturer at Gray’s School of Art, and Lorraine Amies, Careers Consultant in the Department of Employability and Professional Enrichment, have combined their specialist knowledge to develop an innovative new model, which supports the entrepreneurship and career development needs of art and design students at Robert Gordon University.
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t Robert Gordon University (RGU) we pride ourselves in preparing our students for their future careers: we want all our students to have the opportunity to demonstrate their creativity and develop the skills that will enable them to be future-ready. Our new school-wide programme, Personal Professional Development (PPD), was developed in conjunction with student partners and challenges undergraduate and postgraduate students to consider different stages of their career path.
EMPLOYABILITY PLATFORM Entrepreneurship is at the core of what Gray’s School of Art offers its creative students. The Employability team have worked closely with Gray’s in matching the new PPD programme to our core graduate attributes. This collaboration has been critical to the development of Gray’s eHub, the university’s employability platform. Each semester, students take part in interactive exercises, including videos, quizzes and activities, which enables them to meet the learning outcomes required for the semester’s PPD task. On completion of the task, students submit a certificate to their PPD logbook, which also evidences studio practice and any other PPDrelated activities they have engaged in during their studies. The eHub not only allows students to work on their PPD tasks but also gives them
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Employability/ Enterprise / Entrepreneurship /
Personal Professional Development at Gray’s School of Art
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
SUPPORTED Fundamentals:
DEVELOPING Immersion into subject
CONSOLIDATING Making it real
SEMESTER 1
SEMESTER 1
SEMESTER 1
eHub : CV360 >>>
Consider what you have done so far to reach this point. Student works through online resources using Grays/eHUB to gain a certificate for PPD
Plan where you want to get to and identify the skills and knowledge you will need to get there.
AA3507
Student works through online resources using Grays/eHUB to gain a certificate for PPD
FINE ART
SISA Level 1
Workshop run by SIE at RGU 27th November PPD - Open Studio Morning where all Gray’s students get a chance to visit studios across Gray’s School of Art and Garthdee Annexe where our students are based.
eHub : CV360 >>>
Stage 4
Masters
INDEPENDENT Self starter
SEMESTER 1 & 2
SEMESTER 1, 2 & 3
eHub : CV360>>>
eHub : CV360 >>>
DESIGN Creative Futures
AA3703:
Professional Skills: Disseminating Practice
AAM202: Personal Development & Professional Networks
'PPD Progression Plan
Student works through online resources using Grays/eHUB to gain a certificate for PPD
Helping students to ‘Investigate’ and ‘Create’ material that prepares them for the next stage in their careers by applying all of skills they have developed through PPD, placements, Erasmus, Creative Futures and SISA for example.
SISA Masters students can take part in the undergraduate program for Level 1, 2 and 3 during their studies. Level 3 can also be completed after graduation.
Student works through online resources using Grays/eHUB to gain a certificate for PPD
SISA Level 2 Innovation Catalysts
SEMESTER 2
SEMESTER 2
SEMESTER 2
Reflect on your current skills, strengths and considering aspects you want to improve.
Initiate and undertake your plan of work to achieve your ambitions.
DESIGN
One day workshop for Stage 4 students Creative Industries Business Startup with Sally Charles 22nd October
SISA Level 3
Student works through online resources using Grays/eHUB to gain a certificate for PPD
SISA Level 1 Future Thinkers What new thing did you learn; how does it relate to the future; and how does it affect your future. (100 words)
All Stage 1 Design & Fine Art students have access to Linkedin Learning to support thier studio practice.
Student works through online resources using Grays/eHUB to gain a certificate for PPD
AA3307
Industry Work Based Placement
Refresher Workshop run by SIE
Innovation Champions
AA3308
International Exchange
MASTERS / FURTHER EDUCATION
SISA Level 2 Innovation Catalysts
SISA Level 3
PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
FINE ART Life After Art School
GRADUATE IN RESIDENCE
Innovation Champions
eHub : Career Tracker >>>
All Masters students have access to Linkedin Learning to support thier studio practice.
SISA Level 3
BUSINESS START UP
eHub : Career Tracker >>>
eHub : Career Tracker >>>
eHub : Career Tracker >>>
My PPD Workshops – Lorraine Amies , Employability and Professional Enrichment Hub During the course of the year the Employability and Professional Enrichment Hub also run a range of Design and Fine Art, events featuring talks and networking opportunities for all students at Gray’s School of Art. This is also supported by a range of group workshops covering: Fine Artists CV, Networking (Self-Marketing), Where are the Jobs?, Creative Design CVs, Going it alone & Fine tuning yourself for the creative industries.
access to a wealth of up-to-date resources and relevant information to help them increase their employability skills.
AWARDS PROGRAMME For 2019, Gray’s gained accreditation to run the Scottish Innovative Student Award (SISA), supported by the Scottish Institute for Enterprise (SIE). SISA is a new awards programme, which aims to develop innovation skills in students. We are one of the first schools in Scotland to have all its courses accredited to deliver SISA Level 1. All first-year Design and Fine Art students will take part in SISA. The new PPD/ eHub activities complement and support the SISA programme at each level. There is also an optional SIE-run workshop for all our other undergraduate and postgraduate students, which provides them with the skills to complete SISA Level 1. To complement the embedded PPD programme, we also run a range of live events during the year to support the online material. These include: talks and networking opportunities for all our students, with sessions on developing a creative CV, self-marketing and going it alone; Open Studio mornings, where students have the opportunity to visit the studios of students in other year groups; and workshops focusing on business start-up. For 2020 we plan to provide our students with further enhancements to the PPD/eHub. We are drawing on feedback gained during the first semester to develop new material focusing on setting up as a micro business while at university, and after, to support our students as they take their first steps towards establishing successful enterprising careers. /in/iain-morrison /in/lorraineamies
the climate crisis: AN ELEPHANT IN THE INTERVIEW ROOM?
P
With the climate emergency becoming increasingly prominent in public consciousness, Steve Mowforth, Professional Development Consultant at Coventry University, proposes reasons why climate change is pertinent to CEIAG work and suggests that we need to prepare ourselves to support the evolving requirements of an increasingly climate-aware student body.
re-2018, climate change for me was a serious but vague concern lingering pretty much outside of my consciousness and underpinned by an assumption that the authorities would deal with it all in due course. Then, two things happened. Firstly, Extinction Rebellion burst on to the scene and brought the urgency to act on global warming centre-stage. Then I read about a fifteen-year-old Swedish girl who had refused to go to school, demanding that the authorities take appropriate action on climate change. Today, barely a day goes by without mention of XR or Greta Thunberg in the media. More recently, wildfires, extreme weather and eco-collapse events have brought the critical nature of the problem into even sharper focus. So, why is the climate crisis relevant to Careers Education Information Advice and Guidance (CEIAG)? To my mind, there are a few essential reasons.
VALID TOPIC Currently, I do not detect explicit expressions of career-related climate concern from students. It could be that it exists subliminally or that clients do not perceive it as being a valid topic for discussion, and perhaps we are not entirely comfortable discussing the issue either – a kind of elephant in the room. Whatever the case, I think that, in this time of increasingly mainstream climate activism along with growing normalisation of climate
change conversations, school students progressing to university will bring newfound concerns, awareness and expectations, along with the confidence to articulate them.
ECO-ANXIETY I wonder if some students will explicitly, or implicitly, present eco-anxiety associated with their career future. This may take the form, for example, of an inability to envisage a career or a need to cognitively process the concern within the career guidance intervention. Indeed, some of us, as ecoaware practitioners, will struggle with our own issues of climate grief and uncertainty about the future. I believe that, along with our student welfare colleagues, we need to be ready, willing and able to provide appropriate support.
STUDENTS WILL INCREASINGLY EXPECT SUPPORT IN NAVIGATING OPTIONS ALIGNED WITH
THEIR ECOLOGICAL VALUES MEETING NEEDS
I envisage there will be an expectation that career practitioners have insight into careers in the climate crisis era. In a similar respect to the rise of automation, which CEIAG has begun to address, there is massive uncertainty about implications and outcomes. However, I see some exciting
and inspirational prospects on the horizon: for example, the work of author Naomi Klein, the Campaign against Climate Change Trade Union group’s One Million Climate Jobs (2014) or Jeremy Rifkin’s Third Industrial Revolution video. I speculate also that students will increasingly expect support in navigating options aligned with their ecological values and that those who choose to engage in perhaps more contentious movements or activism may find it difficult to articulate these activities appropriately in applications and interviews. In anticipation of increasingly climateaware cohorts, I propose that we find ways to prepare ourselves to address their needs and expectations and to create a CEIAG environment where expression of climate associated career concern is normalised.
RESEARCH As I write in January 2020, with the exception of Tristram Hooley’s (2019) blog entry (some parity maybe with my thinking) and Green Guidance: Guidance for the Future (Peter Plant, 2015), I’ve not encountered much discussion around the implications of climate change for CEIAG practice. I’m considering doing some research in this area and would be pleased to receive comments from AGCAS colleagues.
s.mowforth@coventry.ac.uk
PHOENIX FEBRUARY 2020
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ENTERPRISE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
PROSPECTS: CEMENTING STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS Jayne Rowley, Chief Executive of HECSU Prospects, looks forward to a bright future with Jisc. was overwhelmed by the reception and support that we received at January’s Heads of Service Conference from many careers service colleagues about our decision to join forces with our fellow Universities UK agency, Jisc. I particularly enjoyed sessions discussing the future challenges for graduate careers and employability support including digital and online services for campus and distance learners. This is exciting news as it will cement a strategic partnership, which we have nurtured over several years. By officially coming together we will further support the work of our colleagues in careers services and our partner, AGCAS, to deliver world-leading careers information, as well as postgraduate study and degree verification services. Our combined forces mean that we will be the largest higher education sector agency in the UK, strengthening our mission to provide every graduate with a brilliant career.
ENHANCED STUDENT EXPERIENCE HECSU Prospects has focused on the student experience for nearly 50 years. This has been successfully undertaken in partnership with AGCAS and HE careers and employability services, delivered directly to students through our Prospects services and graduate outcomes portfolio. This important work will remain at the heart of our long-term strategy and will be shared with Jisc.
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PHOENIX FEBRUARY 2020
As digital, data-driven organisations that support institutional strategic planning and delivery, together, we will be better placed to deliver an intelligence-led experience, providing more effective career choice information, insight, advice and guidance for all students as well as those who support them. The merger means that we will add digital student IAG services to Jisc’s portfolio. This is particularly significant as these services are a government priority and sit at the heart of the Office for Students (OfS) strategy. There will also be investment in new and innovative services, which are driven by the needs of both our HE and FE members, to help students, educators and employers alike. We will also look to better support our careers service partners through more investment opportunities, delivering a broader, more innovative offering. We will help universities in particular to boost their graduate employment success rates while enhancing early years employability in line with the National Careers Strategy. One of the huge benefits of our partnership will be that our products and services will be more widely dispersed among students and graduates. This means boosting our already strong audience of 2.1 million unique monthly web browsers who read the fantastic careers content provided by our career service colleagues as well as more than 50k students and graduates who use our career planning tools every month, not forgetting the 160k of
careers and recruitment professionals using our labour market intelligence hub, Luminate.
MARKET-LEADING LABOUR MARKET DATA Our charitable objective will continue to be delivered through our provision of labour market information and thought leadership, funding of market leading careers content and production of leading sector research such as What do Graduates Do?, which will be revived for 2020 with the new Graduate Outcomes data. We will also continue to focus on topics that are high on the agenda for universities, employers and public authorities such as skills and occupational shortages, and social mobility. Our aim is to support careers services, educators, recruiters, parents, students and graduates by utilising improved and expanded data sets to identify the relevant pathways, skills and traits that result in success in the job market both regionally and nationally. I hope that you will join me in looking forward to what our bright future holds for our organisation and careers service colleagues, as well as those who we support together. At the moment we are working towards coming together in May and over the coming months we will be working closely with Jisc to help ensure that this runs as smoothly as possible. In the meantime, I wish you all the best for a successful 2020 and if you have any questions, please do get in touch.
VIEW PHOENIX THEMES AND ISSUES Phoenix
REGIONAL COLLABORATION Mapping the regional impact of an anchor institution The graduate retention challenge
OF PHOENIX
NEXT ISSUE: JUNE 2020 THE RESEARCH ISSUE
ISSUE 155 OCTOBER 2018
Beyond the campus boundary
next issue
Phoenix ISSUE 156 FEBRUARY 2019
SUPPORTING DISABLED STUDENTS Phoenix is the AGCAS journal
ARTICLE DEADLINE
What Happens Next? Key trends in the destinations of disabled graduates
Monday 27 April 2020
A collaborative approach to supporting autistic students Preparing disabled students for the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Phoenix
DOWNLOAD the Phoenix article submission form
Phoenix is the AGCAS journal
ISSUE 157 JUNE 2019
ACADEMIC ALIGNMENT Employability? Isn’t that what Careers do? A joint approach to curriculum design and development Raising graduate outcomes through academic partnerships
Phoenix ISSUE 158 OCTOBER 2019
Phoenix is the AGCAS journal
SUPPORTING INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS Sea change: investing in international students The global classroom Cross-cultural integration for international student success
Phoenix is the AGCAS journal
THIS ISSUE INCLUDES CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE FOLLOWING INSTITUTIONS: Istituto Marangoni
Robert Gordon University
University of Lincoln
King’s College London
Ulster University
University of Liverpool
Leeds Beckett University
University of Birmingham
University of South Wales
Loughborough University
University of Cambridge
University of the Arts London
Newcastle University
University of Chester
Nottingham Trent University
University of Hertfordshire