Impact Report 2021-2022

Impact Report 2021–2022

Launch into the Entrepreneurship Institute’s Impact Report charting our 2021-22 journey, a year of brilliant ideas, start-up success and lots of entrepreneurial spirit!

About us

The Entrepreneurship Institute is the dedicated hub of entrepreneurial activity within King’s College London. We believe that everyone can be entrepreneurial, and that entrepreneurial people can help make the world a better place by solving problems; creating a healthier, smarter, more equal and sustainable future.

For almost 200 years, King’s has been striving to improve the world. The Entrepreneurship Institute continues and advances this legacy in line with King’s Vision 2029.

We support all students, staff and alumni at King’s to develop an entrepreneurial mindset of their own, supporting whatever career or future they have in mind. Some will launch start-ups of their own. We nurture knowledge and ideas from across King’s, contributing to a society of pioneering leaders, creative problem solvers and innovative thinkers, who are equipped to tackle the most pressing challenges of today, and those that lie ahead.

Message from the Director

It’s been an amazing year for the Entrepreneurship Institute, in which we have supported over 400 students to develop their entrepreneurial skills, both on the curriculum and in co-curricular programmes. We also accelerated a further 20 ventures through the King’s20, bringing the total accelerated to date to 120.

It’s been a year of many firsts for the Entrepreneurship Institute. We started accelerating spin-outs from research in addition to start-ups. We launched the King’s Investor Network to improve access to the investment landscape for ventures and expanded our work to understand the barriers to entrepreneurship with a new £300k project focused on students from low-income backgrounds.

My favourite moment of the year was sharing our three years of learning from working with female founders at the Women Entrepreneurs Network symposium, where we launched our report and video. This year, we delivered our third King’s20 cohort with gender parity, without quotas, but by delivering better to the needs of women who aspire to be successful entrepreneurs.

In a world with increasing challenges, it’s so special to see people coming forward with ideas that are solutions to some of the biggest problems, and it’s an honour to be able to support them. It's inspiring to see how King's continues to serve society across all fields and how we play our part in making this happen.

My thanks go to the Entrepreneurship Institute team, who continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible. Their energy, resilience and agility have made this year the success it has been. I’d also like to thank everyone who has worked with or supported us this year by sharing their time and knowledge; we have really valued your company.

We hope you enjoy reading our 21/22 Impact Report.

Julie Devonshire OBE Director Entrepreneurship Institute

I wish I had known sooner that entrepreneurship isn’t simply about starting a business. It’s a mindset and a collection of skills that enable anyone to make an impact in whatever career path they take, whether you work for yourself or someone else.

Joining the Entrepreneurship Institute as an Operations & Sustainability Intern, then an Operations Superstar and finally as part-time Comms & Engage support during the summer, has given me the confidence and experience to secure an exciting job at an educational start-up as a Communications & Operations Lead.

I’ve never had a business idea that I wanted to pursue, yet I learnt so much about the Seven Skills of an Entrepreneurial Mindset that I feel ready to disrupt any industry. I still use this framework today to evaluate and validate my impact within my company and my sector.

Maria Gibson Vazquez, Alumna. Masters in Global Media Industries, Arts & Humanities.

What we learnt this year

Mixing delivery styles works

This year we have optimised mixed delivery formats to better serve the needs of participants on our programmes. Many of the activities on the King’s20 Accelerator, Women Entrepreneurs Network, Idea Factory competition and Enterprise Award were delivered digitally, face-to-face, or in hybrid format.

In-person interaction is still important

With more experience in mixed delivery, we have learnt how important face-to-face interaction is in the development of communities. Facilitating opportunities for connection, networking and shared learning supports communities to engage and grow their members. It’s up to us to continue to create inspiring and welcoming spaces so that our community turn up with a willingness to participate and contribute to a community feeling, or even organically evolve their own.

Translating entrepreneurial skills for employment

We already know how crucial our choice of language is when it comes to talking about entrepreneurial skills with different groups. We have learnt that students appreciate new skills, especially if you can translate them into what employers might be looking for. This year we reached over 400 students, supporting them to skill-up in all Seven Skills of an Entrepreneurial Mindset.

Collaboration is key

Working with different partners to share and exchange knowledge is efficient, effective, rewarding and supports scaling. This year, we collaborated with University College London (UCL) and Imperial College London on London Demo Day, connected with 30+ higher education institutions at the Women Entrepreneurs symposium and partnered with 10 international universities to deliver Venture Crawl.

We can and must shift mindsets on sustainability

Our role in shifting mindsets on sustainability can be extremely powerful. A mindset shift for an early-stage venture can have ramifications for years to come. We now have an inhouse Sustainability Lead to further establish the link between entrepreneurship and sustainability to ensure new entrepreneurs are claiming competitive advantage in this space.

Entrepreneurial Skills

Entrepreneurship is for everyone and anyone can become more entrepreneurial. This year the Entrepreneurship Institute supported over 400 students, staff and alumni to develop entrepreneurial skills and discover an entrepreneurial version of themselves.

Entrepreneurial skills content is delivered on the curriculum, through co-curricular programmes, the organisational development system, and other personal development training systems.

Our Seven Skills of an Entrepreneurial Mindset framework is the foundation that underpins entrepreneurial skills learning across all our programmes and activities. These skills can be applied to any sector, any career and any future; helping those equipped to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges to make it a better place.

It’s clear our message, ‘entrepreneurship is for everyone’, is spreading and reverberating across King’s as we continue to upskill our community.

Enterprise Award

The Enterprise Award is a year-long, co-curricular programme which is designed to take participants through the Seven Skills of an Entrepreneurial Mindset and enhance their employability and career ambitions.

The programme encourages participants to explore and discover the world of entrepreneurship and London’s start-up ecosystem by attending events and workshops, whilst engaging with other resources such as podcasts, videos and reading materials.

We strongly believe in fostering community, promoting opportunities for participants to buddy up and work in groups. The Award contributes to each student’s Higher Education Achievement Report, which can be showcased to employers.

This year, 338 people signed up to participate in the Award, including 12 staff. 94 went on to complete the Award. For the second year running, we have full pre-and-post Award assessment data, evidencing the impact we’re having on the development of entrepreneurial skills and confidence.

• Overall, participants increased their confidence levels by an average of 15.93% across all seven skills (+1.15% on last year).

• The biggest confidence boost came in the ‘Compel’ skill, improving participants' ability to create a connection with an audience and share their vision through authentic and credible leadership.

“It was a very eye-opening experience that helped me learn a lot about myself and entrepreneurship. I have definitely grown as an individual and can’t wait to get even more involved next year.”

Kritika Sawant, Enterprise Award participant, Economics & Management Year 2, King’s Business School.

Entrepreneurial Summer Internships

Five-week internships provide students with first-hand experience of working in a start-up environment, with opportunities to acquire key entrepreneurial skills such as positive disruption, team building and thinking lean, as well as practical knowledge in business planning, sustainability, sales and digital marketing and product development.

This year we advertised 11 different roles within a fully hybrid working model, across two international cohorts of interns and ventures. The King’s20 ventures aided with role creation, recruitment and management processes, giving them an insight into building and scaling their own teams.

We received 63 applications, with 52 shortlisted for interviews. Over five weeks, we provided 1,220 hours of skills and employability development. Of the 11 interns, 40% said they had been encouraged to start working on their own ideas post-internship.

Over the last three years, we have supported 34 students to intern with some of our ventures on the King’s20 Accelerator, through a partnership with Santander and the King’s Business School.

“Working as part of a small start-up that is trying to change important issues allowed me to think outside the box.”

Elise Poussot, Digital Communications Intern with Uwana Energy, International Relations Year 2, Social Science & Public Policy.

Venture Crawl

Venture Crawl is a day-long exploration of our local entrepreneurial ecosystem, bringing students closer to entrepreneurs, innovation hubs, collaborative workspaces and start-ups. The experience aims to inspire students and develop their self-confidence, creative thinking, commitment to growth and leadership skills.

In 2022, we delivered Venture Crawl virtually for a second time. Students attended live workshops, met like-minded peers at networking events and participated in a hybrid pitch-off, won by King’s alumna Mercy Ofuya, founder of Mami.

We also increased our international reach, working with 10 overseas partners in addition to 10+ UK universities. Alongside DePaul University in Chicago, who returned for a second year, we welcomed students from Washington DC, Melbourne, Sydney, Kazakhstan and Ireland.

99% of attendees said they would attend Venture Crawl again, with 73% rating their experience 5 out of 5.

99% 73%

of attendees would attend Venture Crawl again

Rated their experience 5 out of 5

“It was an honour and privilege to represent King’s at the Venture Crawl Pitch competition. The process of condensing a 3-minute pitch to 90 seconds was a great learning experience. It has enabled me to pitch more confidently during conversations with potential stakeholders and to succinctly articulate details of our venture.”

Mercy Ofuya, Founder and CEO of Mami, Alumna PhD Medical Statistics.

Operations Superstars

Operations Superstars are paid-for opportunities provided by the Entrepreneurship Institute, to support current students to learn entrepreneurial skills and build an ‘entrepreneurial edge’ to their CV. They work on a variety of assignments, including event support, mentoring fellow students on the Enterprise Award and captioning our learning materials to ensure our resources are accessible to a diverse audience.

10 Superstars from Law, Life Sciences & Medicine, Business, Arts & Humanities and Engineering completed 384 hours of paid work across the year. 88% agreed that the role was a highlight of their King’s experience, and all 10 Superstars increased their overall level of confi-

dence with the Seven Skills of an Entrepreneurial Mindset by 23%.

“Being a Superstar has pushed me out of my comfort zone and helped me to not only accomplish my goals to a certain extent but has also motivated me to set new ones that further urge me to exert myself.”

Drshika Mehtani, Operations Superstar, Year 2 MSci Pharmacology, Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine.

PhD Masterclasses

The world of entrepreneurship offers real-world career paths for PhD students and their specialist knowledge. Regardless of discipline, entrepreneurial skills help researchers to grow as academics, giving them practical tools to pioneer new ways of thinking or convey their research effectively to any audience.

We expanded our work with PhD students this year, designing two half-day workshops to build on our learning from the Entrepreneurial Mindset Training we delivered in 2020/21. The new Masterclasses focus on disruptive thinking and compelling communication, two of the Seven Skills of an Entrepreneurial Mindset.

Masterclass on Disruptive Thinking participant, anonymous.

“This

Masterclass on Compelling Communication participant, anonymous.

“You need to learn about these concepts, especially if all you do is focus on academia.”

was a great way to refine my key message about my research, particularly outside of an academic context.”

Masterclass on Disruptive Thinking

Data captured through post-event feedback surveys.

100% found the content relevant, comprehensive or easy to understand.

100% felt the workshop had grown their confidence with the Disruptive Thinking skill.

87% felt it was highly interactive and provided an opportunity for meaningful collaboration.

60% felt the content was useful during their PhD and research.

80% felt the content was useful for their future career. 100% would recommend the workshop.

Masterclass on Compelling Communication

Data captured through post-event feedback surveys.

95% found the content relevant, comprehensive and easy to understand.

100% felt the workshop had grown their confidence with the Compelling Communication skill, with 70% growing confidence ‘A Huge Amount’.

100% felt it was highly interactive and provided an opportunity for meaningful collaboration.

65% felt ‘Quite confident’ following the masterclass.

85% felt the content was useful for their future career. 100% would recommend the workshop.

Results from our entrepreneurial skills programmes, 2021-2022

For the second year running, we have been able to tangibly measure skill development across multiple programmes using the Seven Skills framework 407 participants took part in our entrepreneurial skills programmes this year, each completing pre-andpost assessments against the Seven Skills. The results below demonstrate the average percentage change in levels of confidence between pre-and-post assessments.

Getting it Done: Confidence in prioritising workload; maintaining motivation, accountability and focus; leaning into new challenges knowing progress is made by tackling the tasks which stretch us.

Think Lean: Confidence in testing ideas to gain objective feedback; making incremental improvements on an idea rather than aiming for perfection immediately; and considering the conservation of resources by designing out waste.

Compel: Confidence in constructing and delivering a presentation and pitching; confidence in leadership style and articulating a clear vision with persuasiveness.

Validation: Confidence in understanding the problem before jumping into solutions; designing objective questions to gain unbiased feedback; generating traction as proof of need.

Disrupt: Confidence analysing a particular context and spotting opportunities for change; challenging how things are done; and designing solutions that respond to today’s global challenges.

Build Teams: Confidence seeking out opportunities to engage with people from different backgrounds; cultivating a positive and inclusive culture; dealing with conflict between others.

Confidence stepping outside your comfort zone; keeping an objective mindset for greater clarity; fostering personal and professional networks for guidance and support.

Commit to

Developing Ideas

The Entrepreneurship Institute offers a range of supportive activities to help students, staff and alumni to develop new ideas that solve problems.

Our flagship idea generation competition, Idea Factory, takes ideas from ‘light bulb’ moment through to viable business proposition. Workshops support students and staff to develop and refine their ideas, with access to 1:1 support and validation exercises. Prizes include funding, mentoring, office space and more.

One of our key programmes since 2019 has been the Women Entrepreneurs Network, which was set up to achieve gender parity across the Entrepreneurship Institute’s activities. Prior to its formation, our King’s20 Accelerator had only ever achieved 25% applications from women founders, where accelerators internationally had only reached 20%. This year we achieved gender parity on the King’s20 for the third year running.

To support the King’s community to further develop ideas, we are committed to understanding the barriers that exist for different groups engaging or participating in entrepreneurial activity. Using our Women’s Network as a foundation, we continue to share our methodologies and learning with the wider entrepreneurial ecosystem to improve access for all.

Idea Factory

Idea Factory is King’s College London’s flagship idea generation competition. The competition empowers budding entrepreneurs within the King’s community by showcasing their new ideas, which have the potential to grow into viable and successful businesses.

Participants take part in supportive workshops to give them the skills to validate their ideas and pitch them with clarity, confidence and enthusiasm.

This year saw 50 competition submissions from across the King’s community. The quality of applications increased significantly due to us providing greater emphasis on, and support for, validation during the application stage.

Post-application, we offered more support to semi-finalist and finalist teams; from live pitch feedback from their peers and 1:1s with our Pitch Coach before the Pitch Off, to additional sessions with our in-house Experts, post-competition.

Our judging panel awarded four winners a share of £13,000. The People's Choice Award garnered 3500+ votes and the four winners received £2,000 to help them develop their idea further.

For the second year running, we maintained the conversion rate between Idea Factory and the King’s20 Accelerator, with seven ventures on the current cohort taking part in Idea Factory previously.

19.6%

Increase in validation skills for applicants

“There were so many things that I didn’t know that I needed to know and every session I attended was majorly productive.”

Tosin Kirya, Idea Factory 2022 Winner, Nutrition Sciences 2022, Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine

Women Entrepreneurs Network

The Women Entrepreneurs Network (WEN) aims to achieve gender parity across the Entrepreneurship Institute’s activities, with a key aim to build gender parity, sustainably, into the King’s20 Accelerator and beyond.

The network is open to all students, staff and alumni at King’s who identify as women or non-binary. It increases members’ exposure to entrepreneurial skills, knowledge-sharing and support through a like-minded community of over 900 women.

In November, we held an online WEN symposium, launching our report and video to share the knowledge and learning we have gained over the last three years to 79 national and international educators from 30 higher education institutions.

Since launching the network in 2019, we have achieved:

Sir Keir Starmer, Leader of the Labour Party and Rachel Reeves, Shadow Chancellor, recognised the talent and aspiration across the network, during a visit to Bush House to mark International Women’s Day. A panel of 12 King’s-affiliated women entrepreneurs joined a roundtable discussion to share their experiences and valuable insight, to influence how policy changes could better support women’s access to entrepreneurship.

“The network has the most welcoming atmosphere and energy. It’s a safe space to express our genuine thoughts and feelings, which is so powerful.”

WEN member, anonymous.

2,290

900+

9,602 400+

Women Entrepreneurs Retreat

Our three-day weekend retreat returned to Bush House this year and was delivered in-person for the first time since 2019. 30 women entrepreneurs attended sessions designed to increase their customer base and traction by deepening their knowledge of sustainable disruption, pitching and monetisation strategies.

Sessions are delivered in line with the Seven Skills of an Entrepreneurial Mindset framework and provide practical, actionable, and transferable skills, as well as value-focused exercises to give each attendee a plan and resources to support continued business momentum. After the retreat, 92% of attendees said they felt more confident to pursue their venture.

The Retreat has been key to achieving our KPI of gender parity on the King’s20, which we have attained for the third year running. For 2022/23, a record 65% of applicants identified as women-led ventures. Of the successful ventures, 57% identified as women-led and 75% of those had been involved in the WEN community, including 41% attending the Retreat.

WEN Retreat attendee, anonymous.

“It was fascinating to be surrounded by women from so many different industries. Receiving inputs from people outside my industry was really helpful and changed the way I thought about certain things.”

Understanding barriers to entrepreneurship for low-income backgrounds

This year we launched a new £300k project in collaboration with Santander Universities UK to support students from low-income backgrounds with entrepreneurial skills development.

This builds on our methodologies to identify and remove barriers for women-identifying entrepreneurs and aims to enhance students’ employability and their propensity to positively impact the world.

By the end of the three years, the Entrepreneurship Institute aims to have:

• Increased the proportion of low-income students taking part in our programmes.

• Demonstrated skill development in relation to the Seven Skills of an Entrepreneurial Mindset, validating enhanced employability.

• Evidenced case studies of how barriers have been removed, from confidence gaps to sub-optimal networks and financial constraints.

Starting and Scaling Ventures

The Entrepreneurship Institute supports ventures to scale through the King’s20 Accelerator. Since launching in 2015, we have supported 120 ventures from across King’s to grow and develop with dedicated access to funding, mentoring, workshops and office space.

Over the last seven years, 120 King’s20 ventures have collectively generated:

£52,116,900

£68,235,464

£7,784,308

990

list. Our focus on relationship building has enabled 47 ventures to be introduced to 127 investors and 17 partners in the last year alone.

We are also proud to be an endorsing body for the Start-up Visa and the Innovator Visa for international graduates who are seeking to start a business in the UK for the first time.

Revenue Investment Grants

People employed

All ventures are working towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), and many of them can demonstrate their contribution towards tackling climate change. The King’s20 Accelerator is the only UK university accelerator to have sustained gender parity amongst its founders.

Our Investor Network is key to the development of the ventures. This year we have grown our network by 150, resulting in 580 new subscribers on our investor mailing

King’s20 Accelerator

“My time at King’s20 in a word would be impactful. It has provided us a supportive environment to learn and scale at a rapid pace. I would do it all over again if I could!”

Shreya Kalyanasundaram, Co-founder & Director of Ru Medical. Biomedical Engineering Alumna (2021).

The King’s20 Accelerator is our flagship programme, supporting the 20 brightest and highest-potential ventures from across King’s. The Accelerator is open to all King’s students, staff and alumni with ventures or ideas that have at least reached the validation stage of development.

During their year with us, they receive an estimated £60,000 of support which includes:

• Access to a co-working space in the Entrepreneurship Institute hub in Bush House

• Weekly coaching from eight Experts-in-Residence.

• Access to a network of investors and partners

• Support in building leadership, resilience and an entrepreneurial mindset

• Grant funding opportunities

• Funded interns

• A free accounting service

• £10,000 of cloud computing credits

For the first time, content on sustainability was embedded throughout the entirety of the programme to support each venture to contribute to one or more of the UN SDGs.

This year we received 105 applications for Cohort VI, from which we selected the 20 highest-potential ventures. 67% of these were from alumni and most came from the Faculty of Natural, Mathematical and Engineering Sciences.

By the end of the 12-month programme, the cohort had collectively generated:

£297,832 £650,000 £400,800

37

People employed

Revenue Investment Grants

Applications for King's20 by SDGs

Here’s how applicants for our King’s20 Accelerator are contributing to the UN SDGs through their ideas. Note: some ventures contribute to multiple SDGs:

6 2 21

3 7 36

1. No Poverty

6. Clean Water and Sanitation

11. Sustainable Cities and Communities

16. Peace and Justice Strong Institutions

5. Gender Equality

10. Reduced Inequality

15. Life on Land

4. Quality Education

9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

14. Life Below Water

3. Good Health and Well-being

8. Decent Work and Economic Growth

13. Climate Action

2. Zero Hunger

7. Affordable and Clean Energy

12. Responsible Consumption and Production

17. Partnerships for the Goals

Demo Days & Awards

Throughout the 12 months on the King’s20 Accelerator, the ventures are presented with opportunities to pitch for funding and investment.

The David Walsh Awards is a grant programme designed to champion and celebrate the demonstration of entrepreneurial leadership shown by our King’s20 ventures. This year four ventures were awarded a share of £22K to empower them to create a positive impact and fuel their businesses.

Demo Days are annual events that showcase the best and brightest entrepreneurial talent to come through the King’s20 Accelerator to investors. This year’s Demo Day featured an online pitch event with 11 King's20 ventures pitching their business ideas. Followed by an in-person networking drinks reception at Bush House.

London Demo Day, a collaborative event with UCL Hatchery and Imperial Enterprise Lab, returned in September for its second year. Hosted online by UCL, five King’s20 ventures pitched to an audience of over 600 leading investors, partners and alumni, including 207 angel investors. For almost 50% of investors in attendance, it was their first time interacting with start-ups from universities.

Innovation@King’s

This year the Entrepreneurship Institute partnered with King’s IP & Licensing team to launch a pilot programme to support and scale a cohort of innovators. Known as ‘spin-outs’, these innovators are companies that have been developed from King’s research, founded by former or current researchers and PhD students.

The eight Health Innovators, from King’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), are supported by King’s, which usually act as a significant shareholder in the company from the start.

The cohort received 12 months of intensive support, including mentoring, workshops, access to desk space, investment opportunities and more. Next year, we will expand this work with our second cohort of spin-outs featuring other faculties beyond IoPPN.

Visas

The Start-up Visa is a two-year visa route for early-stage, but high-potential, entrepreneurs who are starting a business in the UK for the first time. Businesses must be innovative, viable and scalable, with potential to contribute to the UK economy.

This year we also became an Innovator Visa endorsing body on behalf of the Home Office, providing endorsements for our first three innovators.

In 2021/22, we received 18 applications and

issued 5 endorsements.

“Being able to work on my business full time gave me the ability to really focus on my idea and develop it with the help of mentors and resources. I wouldn’t be at the stage I am now without the Entrepreneurship Institute.”

Shikha Ramjutan, Founder of Re•sept, Pharmacology, Alumna Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine.

Diversity & Inclusion

Diversity is a key driver for innovation. Diversity of experiences, backgrounds, characteristics, lifestyles, perspectives, talents and more underpin the development of new and disruptive ideas that drive change and progress.

Every year we monitor the diversity of the community that are engaging with our programmes. Last year we standardised our Equal Opportunities data-capturing process and have again benchmarked the results against the overall student profiles from the King’s EDI Annual Report.

Gender at King’s College London

Participation by women in our programmes is very high, and we are reporting above average for King’s overall, which is testament to our work and efforts to achieve gender parity.

Disability at King’s College London

We continue to strive to make all our programmes as accessible as possible through hybrid delivery. However, we know we can do more, especially when it comes to representation within our storytelling.

Ethnicity at King’s

Whilst our data continues to be encouraging, there is still more work that we can do, particularly when it comes to representation across our entrepreneurial community.

Community and Engagement

Our digital community grows year on year, and in 2022, it exceeded 30,000 members: 19,275 social media followers and 11,409 newsletter subscribers.

We delivered key, large-scale activities throughout the academic year to engage students in entrepreneurship early in their King’s journey.

Entrepreneurship Institute's Digital Community in numbers

Welcoming new students

We designed a two-week programme of online and in-person activity to welcome new students to King’s in September. Five online workshops introduced 422 undergraduate students to the Seven Skills of an Entrepreneurial Mindset, and Operations Superstars represented the Entrepreneurship Institute at stalls in two pop-up marquees on campus, signposting 125 students to register their interest in this year’s Enterprise Award. We replicated this activity again in January when welcoming postgraduate students to King’s.

Festival of Disruptive Thinking

Launched as a pilot, the Festival of Disruptive Thinking is a two-week festival of online events demonstrating the many ways in which disruptive thinking is already happening across King’s and isn’t limited to the world of start-ups. Featured topics include artificial intelligence, healthcare, decolonisation, women disrupting entrepreneurship and cybersecurity.

Over 860 people registered to attend the 14 online events, with 341 going on to sign-up for the Entrepreneurship Institute newsletter, sparking further engagement in our programmes. The event recordings have amassed over 1,600 views.

Student Groups

We have also applied tactics to strategically advance our engagement efforts with students, by reviving or launching collaborative initiatives with Student Groups to expand our reach.

We supported Student Societies to work together for the first time, launching King’s Entrepreneurship Week (KEW).

King’s Entrepreneurship Week is a festival curated for students, by students. This year’s pilot saw four student societies (King’s Business Club, Enactus, King’s Entrepreneurs and Social Ventures) collaboratively deliver 10 events, supporting 191 students to engage in student-led entrepreneurship.

“My favourite part was listening to stories of entrepreneurs about how they all were hesitant or indecisive at the beginning but ventured on new adventures anyway. This truly inspired me.”

King’s Entrepreneurship Week participant, anonymous.

We offered £2,000 funding for Student Groups to implement their entrepreneurial ideas.

The Entrepreneurial Engagement Fund offers Student Groups at King’s the opportunity to apply for up to £2,000 funding to implement ideas that are focused on engaging and

upskilling participants in entrepreneurship; whilst growing the memberships of both the Society and the Entrepreneurship Institute.

This year’s awardees are implementing a range of ideas, including accelerators, skill share programmes, pitch competitions and a hackathon in the 2022/23 academic year; demonstrating that anyone can be entrepreneurial.

“Receiving this funding from the EI has allowed us to launch the King’s Theatre Lab, an innovative incubation programme to expand access to creative entrepreneurship.”

Daniel Drumm, President of King’s Players.

We engaged academic representatives for the first time by delivering a full-day training event to 95 student leaders.

Academic representatives have a crucial voice within their course communities. This pilot aimed to support them to lead innovatively through role-specific entrepreneurial skills training. Upon completion:

• 99% felt more prepared for their roles.

• 91% believe entrepreneurial skills are useful to their studies and careers.

• 80% had increased their confidence to use and develop entrepreneurial skills.

• 82% felt the training was highly interactive and provided an opportunity for meaningful collaboration.

“It’s been really useful, especially because theory was accompanied by practice which is how you learn and apply new skills.”

Eleonora Mancino, King's Business School

Sustainability

Our commitment to sustainability is evident throughout this report and across all areas of our activity. This year we have developed our technical knowledge and equipped our audiences with more tools, mentorship and ideas to accelerate action on sustainability.

In June, we were awarded an NUS Green Impact Award for the third consecutive year, this time achieving the ‘Gold’ standard. Key highlights of this work include launching quarterly ‘Conversations about Race’ roundtable discussions for the team to discuss their personal learning relevant to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, and creating a two-year department action plan. This recognition validates our work to role model best practice in, and behaviour towards, sustainability.

In the coming year, our focus will be to further evidence the commercial advantages of building sustainability and impact into ideas, initiatives and start-ups from the beginning. We want to build on the diversity of our Investor Network to create more opportunities for ventures who lead on sustainability to scale, whilst supporting female and black founders to gain more equal access to funding. We’re also looking forward to supporting the creation of the new Institute for Responsible Business at King’s.

Neuroscience of Entrepreneurship

The Neuroscience of Entrepreneurship is a research project that sets out to answer two questions: what happens in your brain when you are being entrepreneurial, and how can you make this happen more?

Education systems around the world support people to become more entrepreneurial in the interests of innovation, problem-solving and economic progress. Through our research, we aim to discover more about the neuroscience of entrepreneurship and how education systems could be developed to support more people to become increasingly entrepreneurial.

This year, our PhD student and Neuroscientist in Residence, Emily Clements, achieved ethical approval and started designing the MRI study by incorporating the results of last year’s successful Entrepreneurial Brain Challenge, which featured over 800 participants.

The uniqueness of this research continues to inspire interest. Emily has appeared on an episode of the ‘Disruptors’ podcast, delivered a pre-recorded guest lecture for undergraduate students on the entrepreneurship programme at the Royal Agricultural University, and joined the Cambridge Judge Entrepreneurship Centre as a mentor and speaker to 20 research students. She has also published a pre-print of her paper

‘‘Cognitive Neuroscience and Entrepreneurship: Cross-disciplinary review and future potential’, attracting 264 views and 369 downloads to date.