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.