Enterprise4All

September 2009: Bede Mullen, UCLan

This month marks the start of a new academic year at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) and with the economy beginning to show the first signs of recovery, what better time than to reaffirm our commitment to business enterprise and innovation?

I believe passionately that universities should be proactively encouraging the transfer of their skills and knowledge into businesses and communities and taking on the role of standard bearers for wealth creation, regeneration and social development.

UCLan has recently bolstered its Student Employability and Enterprise Advisory Group with the appointment of Ilyas Munshi, CEO of Enterprise4All - a prestigious partnership which I’m sure will prove to be fruitful for us all.

Benefiting from the strength of referrals from Enterprise4All and its partner organisations, the University’s Knowledge Transfer Service has recently been awarded £30,000 of Innovation Vouchers from the NWDA to deliver bespoke training and consultancy services to a consortium of ten Black and Minority Ethnic businesses in the North West.

This adds to the success of the University as one of the top providers in the region, having been awarded no fewer than 38 Innovation Vouchers since the programme first launched in the North West in the autumn of 2008.

Innovation Vouchers give Lancashire businesses a fantastic opportunity to tap into the expertise residing within the region’s academic institutions. They have already been used to buy UCLan’s expertise in delivering business masterclasses, rebranding consultancy, research, web design and development services and new product testing.

These examples of collaborative Knowledge Transfer are just the tip of the iceberg because the spirit of entrepreneurship is alive and well in Lancashire. UCLan is now actively supporting 126 graduate start-up businesses, employing 367 people, at its state-of-the-art Media Factory in Preston.

The latest Higher Education Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey placed the University second nationally and top in the North West for nurturing graduate enterprise. UCLan was also ranked top for the provision of training days to businesses in the region, with just short of 100,000 learner days being provided in 12 months.

Like all universities, UCLan’s future growth depends heavily on the continued development of the region’s economy and we must find ways of retaining our graduate talent within the county to allow it to flourish.

By working together in partnership with organisations like Enterprise4All and the NWDA, we can share our collective knowledge and expertise for the economic and social benefit of all our local communities.

If you know an enterprise which could benefit from the support available through UCLan’s Knowledge Transfer Service, give Enterprise4All a call and we’ll be happy to help!

Note:
Bede Mullen is Director of UCLan's Knowledge Transfer Service

June 2009: Sir Bill Taylor

Times are not good!

Everyone must have been affected in some way by ‘the credit crunch that became a recession’ but whose fault it is and who should have seen it coming are almost moot points. This is not the time to wring your hands – or to sit on them.

This is the time to roll sleeves up. Waste time and energy playing the 'Blame Game' if you want to, but that just leads to a corrosive outbreak of "competitive suffering syndrome". We don't need fault finders; we need problem solvers!

When has business ever faced completely perfect and favourable conditions?

If, as a region, we’re going to turn our fortunes around, then we need creative, energetic leaders and teams of people. That way A) we'll get out of the recession sooner and B) we get out of it ready to do more business!

Working in difficult economic conditions, Enterprise4All helped a very impressive 901 new businesses to start trading under the NWDA's Business Start-Up initiative and helped a further 636 with post-start support. That's over a period of less than two years and in the face of almost unprecendented economic upheaval. And yet there it is: clear evidence that the spirit of enterprise is still strong in this region and that ordinary people are still committed to putting in plenty of hard work.

Enterprise4All and many other organisations are here to help. So get in touch!