Category: Uncategorised

By Noëlle Quénivet

On 24 February, supervisors from across the College of Business and Law (CBL) met for the first in a series of workshops titled Building the CBL Doctoral Supervisory Community. Facilitated by Professor Peter Case and Dr Pawel Capik, the College Director of Doctoral Research, the event marked the first step towards fostering a more connected and supportive supervisory community and strengthening supervisory practice within the College.

Why develop a supervisory community?

Doctoral supervision is central to sustaining a healthy and vibrant research culture. Yet many supervisors work in isolation, navigating evolving regulations and changing progression processes largely on their own. The workshop aimed to begin building a community of practice, one that encourages cross-disciplinary exchange, supports both PhD and DBA supervision and promotes consistency and confidence across supervisory teams.

The vision is to create a collegial space where supervisors can share experiences, discuss challenges and collectively enhance the doctoral journey for candidates and staff alike.

The emotional dimension of supervision

The workshop opened with reflections on the often invisible labour of supervision. As Dr Capik noted, while doctoral candidates’ success is celebrated, the contributions of supervisory teams and internal reviewers tend to remain in the background. In his words, “they are the unsung heroes”.

Supervisors undertake multiple roles, ranging from academic guide, gatekeeper, quality controller, motivator to pastoral supporter. All are responsibilities shaped by organisational changes within and beyond the University.

Next, with Professor Case facilitating the workshop, participants took part in a Triad Listening exercise. In groups of three, each person shared a supervisory challenge while colleagues alternated between reporting factual details and identifying the emotional content of the stories being told.

Initially, summarising a complex challenge in three minutes felt daunting. However, the activity quickly revealed valuable insights, particularly the difficulty of separating facts from emotions and the role emotional labour plays in supervision.

Colleagues highlighted issues including managing supervisory team dynamics, supporting students returning from suspension and responding to the emerging use of generative AI in doctoral work. Many participants found the exercise eye-opening. Supervisors often overlook the emotional side of their work, even though it has a significant impact on them, their colleagues and their students.

Shared challenges across disciplines

The second part of the workshop invited participants to discuss which supervisory issues were shaped by disciplinary norms and which were common across CBL. Some discipline-specific elements emerged, including defining “rigour”, setting methodological expectations and selecting appropriate external examiners.

However, most of the identified challenges were shared across disciplines. These included:

• Supervising colleagues and navigating role clarity and power dynamics
• Balancing support and independence, particularly avoiding undue influence over a student’s theoretical or methodological choices
• Clarifying the role of the independent reviewer, especially the balance between quality assurance and academic feedback
• Managing boundaries, including the extent of pastoral care and how far supervisors should push students who do not act on feedback
• Handling supervisory workloads, especially with multiple candidates at different stages
• Impostor syndrome, particularly among junior supervisors or those from practitioner backgrounds

Participants also discussed systemic challenges such as accommodating non-linear research pathways (for example fieldwork or illness) and distinguishing between the expectations of PhD and DBA programmes.

These cross-disciplinary conversations demonstrated that despite differences in methods and norms, supervisory teams share many common pressures, questions and aspirations.

Participants also emphasised the importance of recognising and celebrating what supervisors do well. While the workshop focused largely on challenges, colleagues agreed that future discussions should incorporate elements of “Appreciative Inquiry” to highlight effective practices and successful supervisory relationships.

Moving forward: building the community

The session concluded with proposed next steps for establishing a sustainable supervisory community. Suggestions included:

• Storytelling events for sharing supervisory experiences
• Developing guidance and resources on good supervisory practice, particularly in relation to supervising colleagues
• Discussions on recruitment, supervisory workload and team structures
• Exploring what makes the UWE doctoral experience distinctive
• Convening a stakeholder workshop to promote dialogue between the CBL supervisory community and representatives of the Doctoral Academy and College research executives

A strong foundation for future collaboration

The workshop was a great success, bringing colleagues together in a friendly and collaborative environment. It allowed participants to share challenges and reflect on the emotional aspects of supervision.

One of the key takeaways was the importance of creating regular opportunities for open dialogue. Most importantly, the workshop set the stage for developing a lasting supervisory community that will empower supervisors, enrich candidates’ journeys and invigorate the research culture of the College of Business and Law.

By Dr Issy Bray, Dr Moya Lerigo-Sampson and Dr Yvette Morey

As Australia introduced a “world-first” ban on social media for under-16s last month and political momentum in the UK is building to consider similar action. We ask will such a ban protect young people’s wellbeing or create new risks?

The burden of mental disorders in children and young people is increasing worldwide, a trend certainly worsened by the Covid pandemic. Research points to a range of contributing factors, including intergenerational inequality, climate pressure, insecure work and social media.

While we cannot stop the march of technological progress, the effects of constant exposure to social media during childhood and adolescence remain largely unknown. However many feel strongly that social media, and the use of electronic devices more generally, is detrimental to development and wellbeing for children and adolescents.

Against this backdrop, the Australian government introduced its “world-first” social media ban for under-16s on 10 December 2025. Affecting major platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube, the ban prohibits new accounts and requires deactivation of existing ones.

What does the ban aim to do?

While Australia’s ban on under-16’s engagement with social media is unlikely to be popular with young people themselves, the establishment is clear that it does not wish to punish young people – the aim is to protect them.

It is the social media companies that are targeted by the new legislation, which imposes monetary penalties if they fail to take reasonable steps to prevent minors under 16 from having social media accounts in Australia.

However, the Australian Human Rights Commission has indicated that the legislation is potentially in breach of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Digital Freedom Project, a civil liberties group, has announced that it will take legal action against the new laws, saying they violate the right to political communication.

The double-edged nature of social media

Most technological innovations have positive and negative implications. For example, during the Covid pandemic, social media was widely recognised to be a source of support and a way of connecting with others. At the same time as polarising heated debates around lockdown measures such as school closures and travel restrictions.

For many, unable to get out and enjoy their normal life, it encouraged social comparisons that led to dissatisfaction with their lockdown life and, for a minority, it fuelled body dissatisfaction leading to obsessive exercise regimes or disordered eating behaviours.

How will young people be affected?

The situation is not black and white. The balance between benefit and harm may well depend on who you are and where you live.

Approximately 90% of Australians live in urban centres (covering 0.22% of the land mass). The remaining 10% are dispersed in remote rural and coastal communities separated by huge distances.

For a teenager living in the outback, social media might be an important source of information, friendship and connection with the wider world.

As this ban is implemented it will be important to listen to the experiences of young people of different ages and living in different circumstances, to understand how social connection and loneliness are affected and to ensure that socio-economic inequalities are not increased.

How social media is used matters

More subtly, research suggests that the effects of social media depend on how it is used. For example for keeping in touch with loved ones (referred to as ‘active use’), or for viewing images of people we are less well acquainted with, such as social media influencers (‘passive use’), often with negative consequences such as comparing ourselves to others.

Certain sites are more conducive to passive than active use, but one problem with any attempt to research or regulate the use of social media is the speed at which individual platforms appear and then get overtaken. It is an ever-changing landscape, particularly where digital natives are concerned.

However, the Australian legislation allows the government to determine over time which social media platforms must ban age restricted users, meaning that in theory at least it can respond to the emergence of new platforms and data about who is using them and for what purpose. One possible hitch is that the companies themselves own this data.

Is Australia really a “world-first”?

Is the Australian government’s move as ground-breaking as it seems? In the UK and US, existing under-13 age limits already exist but are poorly enforced. In reality many under 13s have had access to social media (one survey estimated the figure to be 43%).

But as of 25 July 2025, the new Online Safety Act (2023/2025) requires platforms to use ‘age assurance’ methods such as ID checks or facial scans.

Politically, it will surely be easier to enforce existing legislation than to implement a new ban in the UK, but it is likely to require a cultural shift that so far been missing. And while the world watches Australia, we would do well to monitor the effects of this stricter enforcement of our own rules.

Protecting young people from harmful content

Critics argue that there is a less radical way to protect young people and that is to specifically protect them from harmful content.

Research carried out by NSPCC reported that more than one in four children had seen content on Facebook and YouTube that contained suicide, violence, bullying, sexual and other adult themes. Such issues have been highlighted recently by tragic suicides, in which young people have been influenced by online communities and exposed to content giving advice on methods of self-harm, and by conversations about pornography, in which dangerous practices such as choking are portrayed as ‘normal’. Prominent voices are calling for a total ban on such material.

The role of the Online Safety Act

In response to these concerns, the Online Safety Act also makes social media companies responsible for protecting under 18s from harmful content. It states that children must be prevented from accessing pornography or content that encourages, promotes or provides instructions for self-harm, eating disorders or suicide.

Ofcom is now the regulator of online safety and responsible for monitoring how effective companies are at protecting internet users from harm. As yet however, there is little information available about how successfully the Online Safety Act has been enforced.

Screen time, wellbeing and alternatives

A recent survey of 16-21 year olds carried out by Ofcom found that two-thirds spend more than two hours on social media every day.

The majority of respondents said they felt worse about themselves after spending time online and approximately half would prefer to be young in a world without the internet.

Protecting children from harmful online content tackles certain serious threats to young people’s wellbeing, but it will not materially alter the amount of time spent online (for over 13s at least).

There are many who argue that reducing screen time would improve young people’s wellbeing not only because of the content they see online, but because they hope it will encourage more time to be spent outdoors in nature, being physically active and interacting with others without the filter of a screen.

A ban on social media for under-16s is one way of doing that, but there are others. Banning use of phones in schools for example, as some schools have trialled in the UK, or introducing a social media curfew. Our government has so far stopped short of introducing these measures.

When we compare ourselves to Australia, will we begin to see a divergence in trends in mental health concerns of young people following the ban?

Learning from Australia

The acknowledgement that social media can be beneficial for wellbeing, and the insights that research offers into how it can be used more positively, suggest that there may be evidence-based alternatives to an outright ban. Such as education-based initiatives that support social media literacy in families.

Australia’s ban provides a natural experiment from which other governments, including our own, should be willing to learn from to make balanced policy decisions based on the evidence that emerges.

The authors have conducted extensive research on social media, including recent work showing that the lives of influencers are often more demanding than they appear (read more about the study).

Alumni Connect is a platform for UWE graduates to access an alumni directory and take part in mentoring. We’re sharing advice on mentoring; this article will cover how to start the conversation with a potential mentor

It can seem daunting to be the person that makes the first move – even when we’re talking about online mentoring.

Relax, you’ve already got at least one thing in common with the people who’ve volunteered to be mentors on Alumni Connect – UWE Bristol. But where do you go from there?

First impressions count online, and you want your potential mentor to want to help you. Here’s some tips on what to include in your opening gambit.

1. Introduce yourself

This is about writing a short summary that will help your mentor understand what you need. Tell them what you study/have studied and the main reason you’re looking for a mentor right now. You don’t have to send your CV straight away (or at all), and you might feel more comfortable doing this after someone has replied to your first question. Short and sweet will do just fine here.

2. Explain why you’ve picked them

Even mentors like to feel special! There’s a reason you’ve considered this mentor, so don’t be shy to let them know.

3. Ask a question that Google can’t answer

You don’t need to go in with a question straight away, but if you do make sure you don’t ask something could find on the first page of a search engine. Alumni Connect gives you the chance to make unique connections and learn from others’ experiences. So ask your potential mentor something only they can answer.

Example:

I’ve just graduated in Marketing Communications and I’m looking for someone to help me get my first job in Social Media Marketing.

I notice that you worked in Marketing for the Olympic Park, and I’d be really interested to know more about what that involved.

What do you love most about your job?

Or

I’m in my final year studying Graphic Design. It would be brilliant if you could take a look at my website and let me know if there are any areas I could work on to help me get work experience with your company.

I think your approach is really unique and I love the project you did for Santander.

What do you think was the most important factor in getting your job?

Once the conversation has started, it’s up to you and your mentor when it stops!

With the right introduction you can grab their attention and they’ll be able to see how they can help you. Explaining who you are, what help you need and why you think they might be the right mentor to assist you creates an instant confidence.

You might have just established a valuable connection and a helpful stepping stone in your career.

It’s competition time!

Are you ready to showcase your talent and creativity to the world? Then get ready to snap, click, and share your best shots because we’re launching an all new CBL photo competition.

Whether you’re an amateur with a passion for capturing moments or a seasoned pro with a keen eye for detail, this competition is your chance to shine and be recognized for your talent.

What’s at stake, you ask? Three lucky winners will be featured and credited on our Instagram page @uwebristolcbl for all to see, admire, and appreciate.

You can capture whatever you like, but we encourage entries to feature the College in some way, whether it’s a photograph of the building, or of students enjoying campus life.

The possibilities are endless when it comes to subjects for your photos. Use your creativity and unique perspective to capture moments that resonate with you and showcase the essence of the College of Business and Law.

📝 Here’s how to enter:

Once you’ve captured that perfect shot, submit it to the competition via DM to our Instagram with the message ‘photo competition entry’, or email us at cbl.engagement@uwe.ac.uk with the same subject line. Make sure to include your name, contact information, and a brief description of your photo to give us some insight into your creative process.

Deadline for submission has now been extended to 12pm Friday 22 March.

Good luck!

Ines Carter, LLM Alumni, Member of ELSRG

This research places itself in the urgency of the climate crisis and what it means for food security. This question hangs like a Damocles sword on governments. Indeed, the climate crisis destabilizes agricultural activities,[1] therefore, calling for urgent measures on all levels. Such calls include taking mitigation measures to reduce GHG emissions arising from the food systems.[2] One of the ways to do so is through food standards.

Starting from there, what cannot be missed is the consequent use of food standards and especially labels and certifications destined for the consumer. These demand-side measures appear as the favoured mode of action to mitigate GHG emissions. This is because labelling and certification processes can be voluntary or compulsory and contain provisions for compliance. The IPCC supports this idea by stating that the potential for mitigation in food standards is high.[3] However, there is a multiplicity of food standards designed by law-making bodies at the international, regional, and national levels and there are food standards recommended by the companies.

Indeed, the EU acts as the forerunner[4] of food standards that aim to mitigate climate change. Inside the EU, there are however difficulties encountered by the standards, such as the lack of scientific consensus on which some of these standards are based. This is the case for pesticides for instance, as glyphosate has recently been reauthorized[5] despite contradictory scientific opinion.[6] Secondly, most measures apply the cornerstone principle of the free movement of goods and are primarily acknowledged as commercial measures rather than climate mitigation efforts. This point also emphasises the predominant role of corporate actors in food standards. Third, many branches of EU law influence the food standards ranging from food law, environmental policies, the Common Agricultural Policy, competition law and food information law. This creates an additional layer of complexity in setting up food standards in the EU.

This context helps us to focus on consumer behaviour and diet changes. Indeed, such behaviour change can contribute to mitigating the effects of climate change on food systems. However, this approach is open to criticism as the aim is not so much on educating consumers but prioritising sustainable and responsible consumption. This can be viewed as unfair and unrealistic if inflation is taken into account.  

It is crucial to mention that the New Green Deal and the Farm to Fork strategy of the EU aims to reform consumer demand, food production, industry behaviour and trade policy.[7] The issue of trade policy is extremely important as the EU food standards influence climate change mitigation measures in third countries such as South Africa.   

Our research focuses on South Africa as it has a high level of development (IDH of 109)[8] and has a well-developed agricultural sector. The EU concluded an Economic Partnership Agreement in 2016 with South Africa: the SADC and Mozambique EU EPA.[9] EPAs allow for preferential treatment mainly using tariff reductions. The goal is to secure continued and improved market access in the EU as it represents the second-most important market for food for South Africa. However, it is also the most unequal country in the world[10] and still bears the stigmata of the apartheid. Therefore, the country presents a precarious socio-economic landscape that is also found in agriculture, as South Africa’s chief economist, Wandile Sihlobo, describes it best in the title of his most recent book: A Country of Two Agricultures. [11]

It is important to note that there is currently no general provision in EU law when it comes to sustainable requirements applicable to domestic or imported products.[12] Nevertheless, the EU has extended such compliance via multilateral, bilateral or autonomous instruments.[13] The existing food standards and the New Green Deal measures, mentioned earlier, have various impacts, both positive and negative, in South Africa. Wandile Sihlobo has assessed that the New Green Deal would involve higher compliance costs for smaller farmers in South Africa. It may also lead to the off-shoring of “bad production” to South Africa and the high-risk exclusion of smallholder farmers. However, there is also the opportunity to use those standards to direct the country’s agriculture towards more modernity, inclusivity, and sustainability.[14]

Our research acknowledges that hidden protectionism can arise from the EU food standards and explores several indirect impacts of these standards. First, the focus on EU-South Africa trade may lead to less regional trade and thus less regional integration in Africa. In the long run, this may hurt the continent, especially regarding development and environmental collaborations.[15] Second,  it is important to assess the land rights situation in South Africa which remains unequal, and recent legislation[16] has sparked debate about the certainty of land rights which could act as a deterrent for foreign investment.[17] On the positive side, there are also hopes of the EU standards acting as an ‘encouragement’ to push climate change mitigation measures in South Africa itself.

Our research on climate change mitigation and the food standards in the EU highlights two findings. First, mitigation measures, whether they are directed at governments or corporations, actually target the responsibility of the consumer. However, the importance of sustainability for consumers is strongly overestimated. Indeed, cost is the first and most important for EU consumers when buying food.[18] The primary focus should be on the food business actors whose actions can forcefully impact climate change mitigation.[19] Second, there are criticisms that the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is not ambitious enough in terms of climate change mitigation efforts.[20] Lastly, the entry into force of some texts from the New Green Deal has been delayed once more, this concerns the dispositions of sustainable food systems.[21]

Regarding the impacts of EU food standards in South Africa, two solutions are explored. First, we argue that a human-rights-based approach in EU-South Africa Trade relations may offer an efficient tool to prevent abuses such as the right to food, women’s rights, indigenous people’s rights, the right to health including the right to a healthy environment and more largely economic rights such as land access.

Second, we also argue that there is a need for better-coordinated policies as the mitigation policies linked with food standard policies are subject to legal fragmentation. There is a need for the establishment of a legal corpus on the subject which to be efficient must be the result of the cooperation between the scientific communities with environmental data, economic data like cost-benefit analysis, and policy-makers.

Our research demonstrated the adverse impacts that a policy taken at one level (e.g., EU) could have on another (national level within the EU and in a third country). In addition, the costs (human or economic) of climate change mitigation policies are immense and there is an urgent need to minimize those costs and maximize the efficiency of climate mitigation policies.

[This blog is based on the LLM Dissertation written by Ines Carter]

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[1] IPCC, 2023: Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, H. Lee and J. Romero (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, pp. 35-115.

[2] UNEP, Climate Action – Mitigation <Mitigation | UNEP – UN Environment Programme> accessed 2nd May 2023.

[3] IPCC, 2023: Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, H. Lee and J. Romero (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, pp. 35-115.

[4] Bernd van der Meulen, “Impact of the Codex Alimentarius: The influence of the Joint FAO/WHP Food Standards Programme on EU Food Law” (2019) 1 EFFL 29-50, p 30.

[5] Geo, ‘L’autorisation du glyphosate sera renouvelée pour 10 ans, a décidé la Commission européenne’ (16 November 2023) < Sarantis Michalopoulos, ‘Les jeunes agriculteurs, une espèce en voie de disparition’ ( Euractiv 1 December 2015) < https://www.euractiv.fr/section/agriculture-alimentation/news/les-jeunes-agriculteurs-une-espece-en-voie-de-disparition/> accessed 27 July 2023>.

[6] The harmfulness of the substance has been largely decried including by the International Agency for Research on Cancer that classifies it as potential carcinogenic (WHO website, ‘IARC Monograph on Glyphosate’ (2018) < https://www.iarc.who.int/featured-news/media-centre-iarc-news-glyphosate/> last accessed 5^th December 2023 ; Chung-Sen Ma & others, ‘Climate warming promotes pesticides resistance through expanding overwintering range of a global pest’ (2021) 12 5352 Nature Communications; News European Parliament, ‘Pesticides : MEPs want a drastic cut in use of chemical pesticides’ 2023 < https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20231023IPR08130/pesticides-meps-want-a-drastic-cut-in-use-of-chemical-pesticides> accessed 16^th September 2023) while the European Food Safety Authority EFSA has said that the level of risk of the substance would not justify its prohibition (M Jacque, ‘Glyphosate : divisée, l’Union européenne repousse sa décision sur l’herbicide’, Les Echos (Oct 2023)< https://www.lesechos.fr/industrie-services/energie-environnement/glyphosate-lunion-europeenne-ne-sentend-pas-sur-une-prolongation-dautorisation-1986978 > accessed 2^nd November 2023).

[7] European Commission, ‘Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council – Application of EU health and environmental standards to imported agricultural and agri-food products’ COM (2022).

[8] N. Cowling, ‘Human development index score of South Africa from 2000 to 2021’ (Statista April 2023)  https://www.statista.com/statistics/1236017/human-development-index-of-south-africa/#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20South%20Africa%20scored,previous%20year%2C%20which%20was%200.73> accessed 25^th August 2023.

[9] European Commission website, Southern African Development Community (SADC) < EU trade relations with Southern African Development Community (SADC) (europa.eu)> accessed 19 May 2023.

[10] The World Bank website, ‘The World Bank in South Africa’ < https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/southafrica/overview#:~:text=South%20Africa%20remains%20a%20dual,coefficient%20of%200.67%20in%20201> accessed 7^th May 2023.

[11] W. Sihlobo, A Country of Two Agricultures (2023, Tracey McDonald Publishers).

[12] Commission, ‘Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council – Application of EU health and environmental standards to imported agricultural and agri-food products’ COM (2022), page 5.

[13] Ibid [7], page 5.

[14] Wandile Sihlobo and Tinashe Kapuya, ‘The EU Green Deal: how it will impact South African agricultural exports’ Polity South Africa (2021) https://www.polity.org.za/article/the-eu-green-deal-how-will-it-impact-south-african-agricultural-exports-2021-10-27 > accessed 15 May 2023; Wandile Sihlobo, Tinashe Kapuya & Econ 3X3, ‘The EU Green Deal: how will it impact South Africa agricultural exports?’ Polity South Africa.

[15] S Powell, ‘Economic Partnership Agreements: Building or Shattering African Regional Integration’, (2007) Eco News SEATINI Traidecraft.

[16] The Expropriation Bill [B23-2020].

[17] T. Fourie (S&P Global Market Intelligence), ‘South Africa expropriation risk’ (2018) <https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/mi/research-analysis/south-africa-expropriation-risk.html> accessed 9^th November 2023; OECD Website – Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2022: Reforming Agricultural Policies for Climate Change Mitigation.

[18] European Food Safety authority, ‘Cost a concern for EU consumers, with food safety close behind’ (28 September 2022)<  https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/news/cost-concern-eu-consumers-food-safety-close-behind > accessed 21 July 2023.

[19]IPCC, AR6 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2023, page 67.

[20] M. Bompart, ‘Europe: La nouvelle politique agricole est un désastre’ (Reporterre 19 Novembre 2021) <https://reporterre.net/Europe-la-nouvelle-politique-agricole-commune-est-un-desastre> accessed 27 July 2023; European Court of Auditors, Special report 16/2021: Common Agricultural Policy and climate: Half of EU climate spending but farm emissions are not decreasing (21 June 2021).

[21] F. Schmitt, ‘Produits chimiques, bien-être animal: l’UE confirme le report de plusieurs lois du Pacte vert’ (Les Echos 4 October 2023) < https://www.lesechos.fr/monde/europe/pesticides-bien-etre-animal-lue-confirme-le-report-de-plusieurs-lois-du-pacte-vert-1984505> accessed 3^rd January 2024.

Berrbizne Urzelai

On 22^nd of November 2023 UWE Bristol organized a Social Impact Hackathon, a business booster event where UWE students from various degrees and disciplines worked with refugee and migrant entrepreneurs associated with the Migrant Business Support (MBS) programme from the West of England Growth Hub and Ashley Community & Housing (ACH) to create networks and overcome barriers faced by Migrant-led businesses in the West of England.

This year, in its second edition, the event took place in the facilities that the West of England Combined Authority has in Redcliff, Bristol. It was led by Dr. Berrbizne Urzelai, Associate professor at UWE, in collaboration mainly with Julia Dixon-Barrow, Entrepreneurship & Engagement Manager at ACH and Scarlett Hagger, Project Support Officer at the West of England Combined Authority. We also had a couple of individuals from the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund observing the event.

The day started with a social breakfast where all participants got to know a bit about each other. The event included a presentation from Jehad Alrefaie on the role of the entrepreneurship support programs in responding to the challenges refugee entrepreneurs face, specifically focused on the case of Syrian refugee entrepreneurs in Turkey.

In the morning the teams, composed by UWE students and migrant entrepreneurs, worked together in understanding the background of the refugees and what kind of problems they were facing, and then in deciding which issue they wanted to focus on.

The students supported a variety of projects and ventures, from an industrial trading Ukrainian company producing construction and gardening materials from plastics, to dance and health related services, food and drink products or decoration companies, all at different stages of development.

The teams pitched their solutions to a panel that was formed by:

• Pawel Capik, Senior Lecturer at UWE
• Paul Ogbon, experienced Board Member with a background in general management, supply chain and manufacturing with significant international exposure.
• Asaad Bagheri, PhD researcher at UWE
• Mose-Issie Ebengho, social entreperneur
• Diana Lopes, TE graduate and entrepreneur

There was value and learning for everyone who attended. The migrant entrepreneurs mentioned:

Quotes from migrant entrepreneurs

I thoroughly enjoyed it. The event was very helpful & very supportive. It also showed me that the help & support was an eye opener for me which help me to think out the box where I could improve. I found the event very informative. I also learnt the importance of working with great teamwork and gaining good positive benefits.

The event was a success. This event involved the students in a new and unique way. It shows how one well-run event can create a watershed moment that results in explosive pushing for future business

The students got exposed to work in real case scenarios and got really inspired to be working with and for members of the community.

Quotes from students

It was very inspiring, I met many new people and created many new connections. Having to see how dedicated these business owners were to come here as seek help it shows that you can achieve anything if you really need or what it. I learned many skills and most of all I came out of my comfort zone: how to communicate well with good listening skills, how to present in-front if a large audience, how to create solutions for problems and many other entrepreneurial skills

Going on from this I am going to look at other ways to develop consultancy skills as the event was interesting to me. There is a possible collaboration further with myself and my refugee client

The partner organizations and members of the panel were also positive about the event, so we are hopeful that this collaboration will continue in the future.

Quotes from partner organisations and panelists

It was incredible hearing the ideas from university students in different subject areas and seeing how they apply their knowledge to real life situations. I will follow up with our clients and help them to apply what was recommended to them on the day

Partner Organisation

It was lovely to observe the teamwork and communication within each group and how they interact with their client. The presentation and pitching in front of the panel was exciting.

Panel Member

The event contributed to some of the actions identified as crucial to transform support for EMBs: to develop business support to help EMBs realize their growth potential, built trust-based relationships within their communities, and foster local network of support through partnerships.

The event was not a competition but a celebration of what we can do together. Everyone involved got a UWE digital badge and the support provided by UWE and its Bristol Community Fund was crucial for its success.

As we approach the end of another year, we wanted to highlight five ways that the Bristol Business School and Bristol Law School have worked throughout the year with a range of partners to make a difference together.  

In December, Business School staff and members of the Student Ventures Team hosted the inaugural Entrepreneurial Futures Awards. Funded by a philanthropic donation from an alumni of the Business School, Peter Fane, and judged alongside alumni and former Governor, Mark Mason, total funding of £105,000 is to be awarded this year to recent UWE graduates.  

Peter has pledged to donate £250,000 over five years to support graduate entrepreneurship and nurture the development of an entrepreneurial ecosystem within the University. The University has also agreed to match fund the donation, meaning that up to £500,000 will be awarded over five years. This is an exciting example of how collaboration with our alumni community can drive innovation and make a huge tangible difference to the lives of our recent graduates. 

Our partnerships with industry contribute to the whole College community. This year we highlighted our focus on sustainability through our research and engagement activities and our collaboration with external partners. UWE researchers and academics worked holistically with organisations including the West of England Combined Authority and the Office for National Statistics to conduct multiple events and research engagement opportunities. We featured Damian Whittard, Associate Professor of Economics, and Jane Vivian, Programme Manager at the West of England Combined Authority in a Future Impact Podcast which looked at what defines a ‘green job’, and the role big data plays in growing and researching this field.  

As a civic University with community at it’s heart the College has successfully secured funding from the City & Guilds Foundation to deliver enterprise education to previously incarcerated people, in partnership with the charity Project ReMake. 

The course – which will provide participants with the opportunity to earn qualifications in enterprise and entrepreneurship – will be free to join. The pilot commenced in September 2023, with additional cohorts planned for January 2024 and May 2024. The enterprise education will take place over eight weeks, delivered online and in-person by UWE Bristol academics as well as industry experts and professionals.  

Dr Jenna Pandeli, Associate Professor in Organisation Studies at UWE Bristol, secured the funding for the course with colleague Lynda Williams and you can listen to the story of how the project came about and it’s wider aims here.  

“Project ReMake uses the empowerment of entrepreneurship to support successful re-entry of prison leavers back into society and to create positive change in their community. We help prison leavers to find work and to start a business. One of the biggest challenges facing individuals re-entering society after prison is finding and maintaining stable employment. With the help of UWE Bristol and our funders at the City & Guilds Foundation we would like to make this a national programme for prison leavers.” 

Kameel Khan, founder of Project ReMake 

As a global gateway, we have partnerships around the world and this makes our community truly international. During Summer 2023, UWE’s Asia Pacific Partnership Team and the Business School collaborated on and launched DAPUWE. This intensive 5-day course is designed to alleviate some of the cultural and digital shock that our international students face when moving to the UK to study. This highlights how we can truly make a difference to our students by collaborating to support them in their studies. 

This year, our students have provided countless positive examples of how their studies have been enhanced by working with our amazing academic staff. They’ve given feedback in their own words about how our connectivity with industry and the way we work together impacts on their personal development and we created this animation using their words to celebrate this.

Bristol Business and Law Schools are a rich diverse vibrant community brought together to build knowledge, understanding and compassion. However you are spending the festive period, we wish you happiness and joy and look forward to welcoming you back in the New Year. 

As we approach the end of another year, we wanted to celebrate the ways that we’ve made a difference together by highlighting five focussed stories as part of our festive celebrations. 

Together, UWE Bristol Business School students Adam Edwards and Henry O’Higgins used the power of people and purpose to campaign for a new course on climate change. UWE is now the first University in the UK to introduce a free course about the climate emergency.  

“We hope it will inspire students to become agents of change, because this is an issue where everything is on the line.” 

Adam Edwards, UWE Bristol postgraduate student 

The pilot course could be rolled out further as a full module for 2024-25 and you can read more about this story here.  

As a University focused on solving future challenges and as global gateway we strive to offer students unique opportunities to engage culturally and meaningfully on an international scale.  

Our Think Pacific Virtual Internships this year have supported 10 Business and Law School students to work with organisations across the globe. Fijian charities, NGOs and businesses have benefited, and students have been able to participate in scoping, and refining briefs as well as practicing applying their knowledge and skills in real world situations. If you’d be interested in applying for an internship next year to make a positive difference in a diverse community you can read the stories of some previous UWE participants here. 

•  120+ students 
• Working with 90+ Fijian charities, NGOs and businesses in Fiji 
• 97% of students said the program increased their cultural intelligence 

More locally, working together with industry means our Programmes are truly practice-led and this makes a huge difference to your experience. We spoke to students, staff and our partners participating in the Work Integrated Learning module on our Accounting and Finance programme to understand the benefits to tackling real problems faced in industry for both our students and professional industry experts.

Looking to the new year, Bristol Business School and Bristol Law School are delighted to launch the UWE Futures Professional Development Programme as a targeted intervention to support Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic students. The new programme has been launched with support from UWE Governors and four local Bristol Law firms.  

In collaboration with Osborne Clarke, Burgess Salmon, Clarke Willmott and Simmons & Simmons this exciting initiative will pilot in January 2024.  In order to enhance employability opportunities, 16 paid work placements will be offered alongside mentorship and a preferential position when applying for permanent roles at the partner organisations. All the opportunities are within the professional services team; HR, Finance, Marketing and Data offering a unique prospect for successful applicants. This pilot project exemplifies the commitment that the Business and Law Schools have to removing the awarding gap that currently disadvantages some of our students.  

“This programme is such an exciting opportunity for our students.  It will ensure that we are actively supporting those of our students who sometimes find it harder to secure learning experiences in industry. We’re so grateful to our Governing body for working with us to create this set of targeted interventions and further foster purposeful connections with the local business community.” 

Paul Bennett, Dean of Partnerships and International

This year, you have provided countless positive examples of how your studies have been enhanced by working with our amazing academic staff who focus on preparing you for the world of work. On top of that you’ve given fantastic feedback about how much you value the facilities we have within the Business and Law Schools, library, SU and more widely across our campuses. What brings everything into perspective though is how this impacts on your own personal development and the journey you go on as a UWE student. We created this animation to celebrate your words from actual NSS feedback. This is how we make a difference in your own words. 

Bristol Business and Law Schools are a rich diverse vibrant community brought together to build knowledge, understanding and compassion. However you are spending the festive period we wish you happiness and joy and look forward to welcoming you back in the New Year.