The UWE Enterprise Skills Team in collaboration with The Faculty of Business and Law at UWE Bristol provided 16 Summer Enterprise Scholarships in 2020 to enable undergraduate and postgraduate students to develop an idea or venture.
The programme was divided into two strands:
- The Start-Up Scholarship; aimed at students with an idea for a business or social enterprise.
- The Impact & Innovation Scholarship; aimed at students with enterprising projects such as community projects and public engagement.
Faculty funding covered an initial 10 Scholarships with additional funding provided through Student Experience as part of the Vice-Chancellor’s ‘finishing well’ initiative. Alongside this, a new Accelerator fund sponsored by Santander Universities was launched which provided 2 high achieving FBL Scholars with additional grants of £2,500 to boost their project post-Scholarship.
As part of the programme each student received £1000 in funding, 1:2:1 support from the Enterprise Skills Team, weekly seminars, an external mentor and access to the Student Ventures Incubator digital co-working spaces.
The Accelerator Fund winners were FirstGens, Clink & Drink Mobile Bars and Velvaere Studios Ltd.
FirstGens aims to support those who are the first of their family to go to university and they used the scholarship to build a website, conduct market research, set up social media channels and more.
Clink & Drink Mobile Bars caters to weddings, celebratory events, small-scale festivals and corporate engagements and the scholarship enabled them to purchase a horse trailer to convert into a mobile bar, build a social media following and create successful collaborations.
Velvaere Studios is a home gym design and equipment fit out company and throughout the scholarship they were able to work with an interior designer to create a design inspiration book for home gyms, created and distributed marketing materials and established supplier partnerships.
Student feedback
“I really enjoyed the workshop sessions run by the enterprise team. I always learn something new about the topic of the week. I also really enjoyed interacting with the other scholars and learning about their journeys so far.”
FBL student on the Start-Up Scholarship
“I enjoyed seeing my idea become a reality. I enjoyed making contacts with people that are company directors and the fact when they heard my idea they were so happy to be speaking to me and I felt like they really cared and appreciated what I said.”
FBL student on the Impact & Innovation Scholarship
“The classes and lunch and learn sessions have been fantastic, I’ve really enjoyed being able to attend daily webinars and learn so many different things each day. There was a real community feel amongst the group, which has been great for helping me stay positive and for interacting with everyone.”
FBL student on the Start-Up Scholarship
All Scholars were invited to contribute to a Scholarship to share their achievements as part of the celebration of the 2020 cohort. You can view the Yearbook here.
Celebration Event and Student Case Studies
To mark the end of the 2020 Summer Scholarship programme, Scholars, Mentors and Staff were invited to a Celebration Event (recording of the event can be found here). A representative Scholar from each Faculty shared their Scholarship journey with the audience. You can hear from the FBL Scholar, Katie Hounsham (final year, Business Management and Marketing) here.