Description
Within this brief description explores supporting the entrepreneurial potential of higher education university of huddersfield.
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Case Study No. 5:
University of Huddersfield, United
Kingdom:
Entrepreneurship education across all
Schools and how to teach the teachers
May 2015
Author: Stefan Lilischkis
About the sepHE Study
The study "Supporting the entrepreneurial potential of higher education"
was based on a contract between the European Commission, Directorate
General Education and Culture (DG EAC), and empirica Gesellschaft für
Kommunikations- und Technologieforschung mbH (co-ordinator – Bonn,
Germany) as well as the University of Wuppertal, UNESCO Chair of
Entrepreneurship and Intercultural Management (Wuppertal, Germany).
The study’s main purpose was collecting 20 case studies about insightful
practice in entrepreneurship education at European universities. This is one
of them. The findings from a cross-case analysis are included in the Final
Report which is available at the study’s homepage and at DG EAC’s website.
Supporting the entrepreneurial
potential of higher education
http://www.sephHE.eu
[email protected]
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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5 University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom:
entrepreneurship education across all Schools
and how to teach the teachers
Overview of contents
5.1 The university’s entrepreneurial profile .................................................................................4
5.1.1 The university’s overall approach to entrepreneurship........................................................... 4
5.1.2 Leadership and governance .................................................................................................. 5
5.1.3 Resources: people and financial capacity .............................................................................. 7
5.2 Entrepreneurship in curricula and teaching ...........................................................................7
5.2.1 Overview of curricular offers and units providing them .......................................................... 7
5.2.2 Target groups ...................................................................................................................... 11
5.2.3 Designing lectures and courses – basic curricular decisions ............................................... 12
5.2.4 Setting of entrepreneurship teaching ................................................................................... 13
5.2.5 Instructors: teachers and mentors........................................................................................ 13
5.2.6 Management of entrepreneurship education ....................................................................... 15
5.3 Extra-curricular activities in entrepreneurship education .....................................................17
5.4 Institutional aspects of entrepreneurship education.............................................................20
5.4.1 Organisational set-up and change ....................................................................................... 20
5.4.2 Laws, statutes and codes .................................................................................................... 21
5.4.3 Mindsets and attitudes ......................................................................................................... 21
5.5 Outreach to external stakeholders of EE .............................................................................22
5.5.1 External stakeholders involved in entrepreneurship education ............................................ 22
5.5.2 International relationships .................................................................................................... 23
5.6 Impact and lessons learned ................................................................................................23
5.6.1 Evaluating impacts of entrepreneurship education .............................................................. 23
5.6.2 Lessons learned................................................................................................................... 24
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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Abstract
Entrepreneurship education (EE) at the University of Huddersfield (UoH) combines
strong profiles in curricula offers, extra-curricular activities and organisational set-
up. The UoH is one of a few UK universities to offer new venture creation degrees:
the UoH’s Business School offers bachelor, masters, and doctoral degrees
involving to start an enterprise. However, the most striking characteristic of EE at
the UoH may be that EE teaching is “everyone’s responsibility”. Embedded EE is
offered in all of the university’s seven academic Schools. The UoH’s strategy
provides that by 2018 each student is to encounter EE in his or her study. This
approach is enabled by a concept that does not only promote “entrepreneurship”
as starting a business but also, more generally, “enterprising” as making ideas
happen. The UoH also offers major extra-curricular EE activities, mainly through
the UoH’s Enterprise Team but also activities by teachers from various schools. As
regards organisational set-up of EE, there is strong support from the university’s
management. The Vice Chancellor put in place a supportive infrastructure with the
appointments of a Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and Enterprise, a Director of
Research and Enterprise, and a Head of Enterprise. The UoH’s Enterprise Team
unit is an important element in the UoH’s EE approach. The Enterprise Team helps
UoH students and graduates start their business and it encourages and supports
teachers especially from non-business Schools to teach entrepreneurship
themselves. Moreover, entrepreneurs and businesses contribute to the design of
the curriculum and help support students in many ways. While some EE activities
are co-funded by the national government and the EU, the UoH’s EE profile may
largely be due to leadership that other universities could emulate fairly easily.
Case study fact sheet
Full name of the university, town,
country
University of Huddersfield (UoH), Huddersfield (150,000 inhabitants;
10
th
largest town in UK), United Kingdom
Legal status Public
Campuses Queensgate, International Study Centre (on main campus)
Year of foundation: 1825 (Science and Mechanic Institute), formal name “University of
Huddersfield” since 1992.
Number of students (year): 20,435 (2012/2013) (Source: HESA 2014a)
Number of employees: 1,035 (academic); 1,480 (non-academic); 165 (academic atypical)
(Source: HESA 2014b)
Budget in most recent financial
year:
Income 2013: 142.5 million £ (approx. 174.5 million €) (According to
UoH Financial Statements 2013, p. 11)
Academic profile: Academic schools: Applied Sciences; Art, Design and Architecture;
Computing and Engineering; Education and Professional Development;
Business; Human and Health Sciences; Music, Humanities and Media.
Entrepreneurial University of the Year at Times Higher Education
(THE) awards 2012; University of the Year at the THE awards 2013.
Entrepreneurship education profile: Degree courses at the Business School embed entrepreneurship into
the curriculum; teaching EE is “everyone’s responsibility”; every
student shall encounter EE by 2018
Activities focused in this case
study:
Curricular offers and extra-curricular activities in EE across the
university and how the UoH “teaches the teachers” about EE
Case contact person(s): Gatekeeper: Kelly Smith, Head of Enterprise Team
Information included in this case study is from end of year 2014 unless stated differently.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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5.1 The university’s entrepreneurial profile
5.1.1 The university’s overall approach to entrepreneurship
Key characteristics of EE at the UoH
Entrepreneurship education (EE) at the University of Huddersfield (UoH) combines strong
profiles in curricula offers, extra-curricular activities and organisational set-up. As regards
curricular offers, EE is a key part of the UoH’s strategy. The university targets to ensure
that every student encounters EE at some point in his or her study by 2018. Notably, the
UoH defines EE not only in the common meaning as “entrepreneurship” and “venturing”,
i.e. starting a new business, but also more generally as “enterprising”, i.e. having an idea
and making it happen. Correspondingly, on the teachers’ side, a striking characteristic of
the UoH is that teaching about entrepreneurship and enterprising is “everyone’s
responsibility”. This case study pays special attention to this issue. It raises the ensuing
issue how the UoH ensures that those teaching about entrepreneurship are qualified to
do so, i.e. how the UoH “teaches the teachers”. The UoH pursues a diverse approach in
this respect. Thus, this case study presents a broader picture of what the UoH offers in
EE as well as a more specific view on how the UoH supports the offers.
Publicity of the UoH case
The University of Huddersfield received the Times Higher Education (THE) award for the
“Entrepreneurial University of the Year” in the UK for 2012. The UoH received the
award for its “entrepreneurial outlook championed at the highest levels of the institution”.
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This included establishing an innovation centre, working with national entrepreneurship
bodies, regional leadership in fostering student and graduate business start-ups, an
excellent record in student employability and self-employment, and top national ranks in
various higher education indicators. As regards curricular EE, the UoH “was also
commended for the way in which degree courses embed entrepreneurship into the
curriculum and in particular for the BA in Enterprise Development”.
In 2013 the UoH was furthermore awarded the title “University of the Year”, also due to
its entrepreneurial profile. The UoH’s support for entrepreneurship education has been
included as a case study in three influential policy reports to UK Government (see Wilson
2012, Witty 2013, Young 2014). Already in 2009, the work by John Thompson, now
emeritus professor in entrepreneurship, was recognised by a Queen’s Award for
Enterprise Promotion. It also honoured setting up the UoH’s Business Mine, the precursor
to the Enterprise Team.
Due to these awards the case of EE at the UoH may be well-known in the UK. However,
the UoH apparently has not yet reached considerable international attention. The reason
may be that most of the UoH’s major entrepreneurial activities were launched since 2009
and are thus fairly recent.
1
Quoted fromhttp://www.hud.ac.uk/about/the-university/our-awards/the-entrepreneurial-award/.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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5.1.2 Leadership and governance
Importance of government strategies and policies
The UoH’s focus on entrepreneurship and EE is influenced by the importance which the
UK government attributes to EE. However, the UoH also influences national and regional
government strategies and programmes. For example, UoH’s Head of Enterprise Kelly
Smith is a co-author of the UK’s Quality Assurance Agency’s national guidelines for
enterprise and entrepreneurship education in higher education from 2012 (QAA 2012)
and a 2014 report for the UK Government’s All Party Parliamentary Group for
Microbusiness on an “education system fit for an entrepreneur” (Anderson et al. 2014).
Importance of entrepreneurship in the university’s strategy
Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education are core parts of the UoH’s strategy.
One of three aims of the UoH’s “Teaching and Learning Strategy 2013-2018” is “to
inspire employable and enterprising graduates”. The two other aims are “to inspire our
students to attain the highest academic and professional standards” and “to inspire our
students to enjoy an outstanding university experience”. “Enterprising Students” is the
second of six “enabling strands” supporting the delivery of the three overall aims. The
enterprising students strand contributes to all three.
Extent of high level commitment to implementing entrepreneurship
The theme of enterprise and entrepreneurship is promoted at the highest level by
UoH’s Vice-Chancellor,
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Professor Bob Cryan, and through the Deans of Schools working
with the Research and Enterprise office. The teaching and learning strategy, which
includes the Enterprising Students strand described above, is led by Professor Tim
Thornton, Pro Vice Chancellor for Teaching and Learning. While the UoH always had a
practical, business-oriented and entrepreneurial flavour, entrepreneurship became an
explicit objective when Bob Cryan became Vice Chancellor in 2005. Since then “it has
been strengthened, strengthened and strengthened”, as Head of Enterprise Kelly Smith
said. She also said that the majority of staff were very proud of being awarded the title of
“Entrepreneurial University of the Year”. The UoH’s Annual Review 2012, the most recent
issue at the time of writing this case study, strongly emphasised the UoH’s mission to
support enterprise and entrepreneurship. There were however some “agnostics” (Kelly
Smith) and also some resistance. Tim Thornton said that “we need to explain the benefits
of enterprising and entrepreneurship for other parts of education and research” in order to
decrease such resistance.
Level of faculties’ and units’ autonomy to act
As Kelly Smith explained, the UoH’s academic schools are largely independent:
“Schools are responsible for the implementation of the University’s teaching and learning
strategy and will be required to do so, but they have a large amount of autonomy in how it
is done. They will be expected to produce School-level plans for delivery and report on
progress.” The strategy’s strand “Enterprise modules (...) to be provided at each level of
every course” implies that Schools must provide at least one enterprise-related module in
2
At the UoH as in the UK university system in general, the Vice Chancellor is the highest
executive position, while the Chancellor has a rather representative function.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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every year of every course. This may be about “being enterprising” but not necessarily in
terms of new venture creation – the Schools will be free to decide how. According to Kelly
Smith, “there is also encouragement to provide additional degrees and courses related to
enterprise and entrepreneurship, but no explicit pressure to do so and no requirement in
the teaching and learning strategy”.
Organisational implementation
The UoH’s approach to EE is largely decentralised. The UoH thus has a “radiant”
approach to entrepreneurship education. While the Business School offers three degrees
in entrepreneurship, it has only one Professor for entrepreneurship. It does not offer
entrepreneurship education at the other schools although it may provide support to non-
Business colleagues. Where enterprise or entrepreneurship is included in a course of
study, it will most likely be taught by teachers with a different core thematic expertise.
There are three ideas behind this approach. The first is credibility and cultural proximity:
non-business students may not accept being taught by business professors but they do
accept it from the professors in their school. Second, there is an issue of scale: A
decentralised approach may help enabling all students at the university have an
enterprise education experience at all levels of their course, as targeted by 2018 – this
could be difficult to be achieved with a centralised EE unit. A third advantage is that it
allows EE to be contextualised to the students’ subject of study – potentially industry-
specific rather than generic.
University’s importance for driving entrepreneurship in its environment
The UoH plays a vital role in regional entrepreneurship, manifested in a leading role in
the regional university co-operation “Graduate Entrepreneurship Project”, the 3M Buckley
Innovation Centre, and board memberships.
The UoH is the lead partner in the Graduate Entrepreneurship Project
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(GE) funded
with £2.7 million from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). GE is a
collaboration of the ten Universities across Yorkshire and the Humber, one of England’s
nine official regions. ERDF funding ceased in November 2014 but the partners are
committed to continuing with non-funded collaborative activity.
The UoH also supports the region’s innovative small and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs) through the 3M Buckley Innovation Centre (3MBIC)
4
located on campus.
3MBIC was funded by the ERDF, Kirklees Council, 3M, and the UoH. It opened in 2012.
This centre provides state of the art facilities, facilitating partnerships between businesses
and with the university. 3MBIC houses start-ups, SMEs, and large corporations. The
Centre offers access to finance, markets and technology through a range of commercial,
technical and support services. Tenants and network members are encouraged to
establish close working relationships with the UoH’s staff.
5
The UoH’s Enterprise Team
unit is based in the Duke of York Young Entrepreneur Centre housed in the 3MBIC.
The UoH’s role in developing regional entrepreneurship also manifests itself in
memberships on regional boards.
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3
Seehttp://graduateentrepreneurship.co.uk/.
4
Seehttp://www.3mbic.com.
5
Seehttp://www.3mbic.com/about/.
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Vice Chancellor Bob Cryan: Leeds City Region LEP Board and its Business, Innovation and
Growth Panel; Pro Vice Chancellor Tim Thornton: Employment and Skills Panel; Enterprise
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5.1.3 Resources: people and financial capacity
Human resources for entrepreneurship education
The UoH seeks to involve university teachers from all UoH Schools into EE. The UoH has
also an entrepreneur in residence and it involves entrepreneurs in EE. For example, 3M
New Ventures President Stefan Gabriel is Visiting Professor of Innovation, and Theo
Paphitis, owner of three UK retail chains, champions the BA Enterprise Development
degree and has given Master classes to enterprising students and graduates.
Financial resources for entrepreneurship education
The UoH funds its EE offers and extra-curricular activities through several public and
private sources. For curricular-based activity, as enterprise teaching and learning will be
embedded as a core part of every course by 2018, sustainability is built in. Enterprise
Team staff in the university’s student and graduate business start-up unit, who deliver the
Enterprise Placement Year and provide extra-curricular start-up support, are funded
through the UK’s Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF). HEIF also provides small
micro-finance grants. The UoH recently became a “Santander University”, joining an
alliance with the Santander bank which comes with some funds to support business start-
up as well as engagement with a national business planning competition. Some start-up
support activity and micro-finance grants were funded through the European Research
and Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the Graduate Entrepreneurship Project. The
UoH is currently looking for funding to supplement HEIF.
Moreover the UoH gained funds to promote social enterprise from the Higher Education
Funding Council for England (HEFCE). This funding finished in August 2013, but the UoH
set up a social enterprise consultancy unit as a result where some of the income
generated will be used to sustain micro-finance grants for social enterprise.
5.2 Entrepreneurship in curricula and teaching
5.2.1 Overview of curricular offers and units providing them
Curricular EE offers at the UoH
The UoH has curricular EE offers in all schools. Using the terminology of the National
Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education, the UoH offers three types of curricular
offers, by decreasing level of formalisation and contents: (1) full awards or qualifications
in enterprise and entrepreneurship, (2) credit bearing enterprise and entrepreneurship
modules, (3) embedded modules with enterprise and entrepreneurship. Furthermore, a
placement opportunity, the Enterprise Placement Year, supports students as they set
up their own business instead of working in employment. Exhibit 1-2 shows an overview
about some of the most prominent curricular offers in entrepreneurship education at the
UoH.
Team Leader Kelly Smith: Enterprise Education Group; Liz Towns-Andrews: Kirklees
Employability and Skills Board and Deputy Chair of the Yorkshire Universities' Knowledge
Transfer (KT) Directors' Network.
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Exhibit 5-1: Overview about prominent curricular EE offers at the University of Huddersfield
No. Name, degree Objectives Target groups Offered
since
[year]
No. of
participants
in [year]
(1) Degree offers Business School
1 BA Enterprise
Development
“Designed to help young
entrepreneurs start and run their
own business whilst studying for
a degree”. Three-years full time.
“Students of any age”
(Course description)
2009/2010 20 places
available
(2014/15: six
seeking the
degree)
2 BA
Entrepreneurship
and Business
Substantial elements of
enterprise education; no
expectation of actual business
start-up
Students whose
“ambition is to succeed
as an entrepreneur and
to develop and
progress [their] ideas in
the marketplace”
(course description)
2005/2006 30 places
available
(2014/15: 24
seeking the
degree)
3 Masters of
Enterprise (MEnt)
“The emphasis is on enterprise
creation and personal
entrepreneurial development
within the chosen area, rather
than on the study of business
organisations.” One year full time
or two years part time “research
degree with little or no taught
component”.
Students “wishing to
explore a potential
business or social
enterprise idea, either
to start-up their own
business or for a new
venture within public- or
private-sector
organisations” (course
description)
2010/2011 10/2014:
three current
students
4 Doctor of
Enterprise
Same as for MEnt “students whose
emphasis is on the
need for research to
underpin a new
business, social
enterprise, or
innovative service idea”
(Course description)
2010/2011 10/2014:
seven current
students
(2) Credit modules
(exemplary)
School of Music, Humanities
and Media
Magazine Design
and Production
Increasing (self-)employment
opportunities through practical
learning how to launch a new
magazine
BA(Hons) Journalism
BA(Hons) Music
Journalism
BA(Hons) Sports
Journalism
BA Hons Business with
Design
n.a. n.a.
Other offers
Enterprise
Placement Year
Supporting students in preparing
to start an own business
All students 2004 20
Games-Industry
Enterprise
Placement Year
Supporting students in preparing
to start their own games business
Students in the School
of Computing and
Engineering
2014 10
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Curricular EE offers at the Business School
The UoH’s Business School has around 6,000 full-time, part-time and distance learning
students. This means that almost one third of the UoH’s students are at the Business
School. It has five departments: Accountancy, Leadership and Management, Logistics
and Hospitality Management, Strategy and Marketing, Law School.
The most prominent EE offers are full awards. The UoH’s Business School offers “three
programmes of study which explicitly provide opportunities for students to start-up their
own business or social enterprise, or to develop a new service innovation”.
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These three
programmes cover all three levels of higher education: bachelor, master and doctor.
There is a Bachelor of Arts in Enterprise Development, a Master of Enterprise (MEnt),
and a Doctor of Enterprise (Ent D). Furthermore there is a BA in Entrepreneurship and
Business. The BA in Entrepreneurship and Business will include substantial elements of
enterprise education, but there is no expectation of actual business start-up. The MEnt
and EntD are also offered by other academic Schools, too, as they are research degrees.
Students will register with the academic school that best meets their research
requirements.
Beside the full awards there are other entrepreneurship-related offers at the Business
School. In Transport and Logistics, enterprise is taught through financial, commercial and
marketing modules. Within the Business Management course they have specific
modules, such as personal development, business enterprise and an employment
module, which are more explicitly enterprise modules. Events Management students at
the Business School design and deliver real events linked to the Prince’s Trust Million
Makers competition.
Curricular EE offers outside the business school
In 2010 and 2012, the UoH’s academic schools were required to self-report their EE
modules according to the descriptions of the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in
Education (NCEE). The UoH’s Teaching and Learning Institute carried out a baseline
audit of course descriptors in 2013 so that the UoH can look at the future impact of its
Enterprising Students strategy theme. They found that the “enterprising modules” strand
of the UoH’s strategy “produced many responses, despite the number of courses not
having definitive modules in enterprise”. Experience suggests that enterprise activity in
the modules is not always made explicit. The following lists some exemplary offers:
The Drama degree programme at the School of Music, Humanities and Media does
not have an enterprising module as such, but the teachers in charge encourage
students to do free-lance work. They also have a student theatre company which
gives the students the mechanics on how a theatre would work and how to budget.
Music Technology and Audio Systems, also at the School of Music, Humanities
and Media, has an enterprising module named “Business in the Music Industry” in
the final year, where students learn how to draw up contracts and manage
businesses within the music industry.
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Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/research/developmentarea/enterprise/enterpriseinthecurriculum/enterprise
degrees/.
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In Architecture at the School of Art, Design and Architecture, students have to
draw up contracts in respect to buildings, and planning permission, providing
students with the tools they need to start a business after their academic study.
Computer Games Design students from the School of Computing and Engineering
can apply for a sandwich placement where they run their own games studio for
programme accreditation, Canal Side Studios.
At the same school there is a project
tasking students to publish a game for a mobile device, which has enterprising
aspects such as personal marketing skills, in which they develop simultaneously to
differentiate their product from others.
Exemplary curricular offers
The following box text describes an EE offer in more detail: “Magazine Design and
Production”, offered at the School of Music, Humanities and Media. This offer was
selected for this case study because it is long-established and successful.
Magazine Design and Production (School of Music, Humanities and Media)
The UoH’s School of Music, Humanities and Media runs a module “Magazine Design and
Production”. It “analyses the diversity and complexity of the magazine market and
considers the nature of design and production. The economics, costs, techniques, and
organisation of design and production are examined and the nature of the publishing
industry investigated.” The module is core for general Journalism students and offered as
an elective to students of Music Journalism, Sports Journalism, and Business with
Design. Caroline Pringle, Senior Lecturer Digital and Practical Journalism, runs the
module. According to the UoH, “the module offers a holistic view of the magazine industry
and production process; it allows students to see through a project from conception idea
for a magazine, to the production of a dummy copy, via market research, budgeting,
design iteration and marketing. All of this is then presented to a Dragon’s Den style panel
of Industry professionals that the staff group have built up over the years.” In the first
term, the delivery of the module is fairly traditional via lectures – also including visiting
practitioners – as well as seminars and practical design workshops. In the second term
students work in groups as a business team, taking on responsibility for design, editorial,
business and finance. The project culminates in a twelve-page dummy copy of a
magazine with representative copy, design and advertising as well as evidence of market
viability, marketing strategy, basic balance sheet and basic business plan. The UoH
considers this module as a good practice in enterprise education and enhancing
employability.
Source: University of Huddersfield, description sheet for the module “Magazine Design and
Production”. For a more elaborate description see the annex of this case study.
Enterprise Placement Year (all Schools)
The Enterprise Placement Year is a year-long accredited module of study. Students
explore self-employment instead of working in a company as they would in a traditional
placement. By the time of writing this case study it was already available to the majority of
students, although spaces were limited. Schools were being encouraged to create their
own enterprise or innovation-related placement years in addition to the generic EPY. An
example was a game-industry enterprise placement year launched in 2014 by the School
of Computing and Engineering with ten students looking to start-up three games
businesses. Source: Kelly Smith, UoH Enterprise Team, 2014
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5.2.2 Target groups
Main target groups of entrepreneurship education
The UoH targets all students to learn about enterprising and entrepreneurship. Statistics
show that this objective is currently only partly fulfilled. The bi-annual mapping survey for
2012 of the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education (NCEE) shows that in
2012, the total number of offers and students participating differed largely between
the schools. It was by far the largest in the School of Art, Design and Architecture (ADA)
which offered 71 embedded modules and 4 credit modules. The ADA School also
counted the largest number of students involved: 2229 for embedded modules and 222
for credit modules (per module, so double counting may occur). The reason is that most
ADA graduates start their own business sooner or later. The Business School had 17
modules and 775 students, followed by the Schools of Music, Humanities and Media (8
modules, 503 students), Applied Sciences (6 modules, 249 students) and Computing and
Engineering (4 modules, 230 students). At two schools there was not much EE activity:
The School of Educational and Professional Development (3 modules, 82 students), and
the School of Human and Health Sciences (3 modules, 54 students). The typical
graduate’s career in these schools was to work for public services or charities. However,
interviewees mentioned increasing interest for example in social entrepreneurship from
this school.
In the 2013 audit by the UoH’s Teaching and Learning Institute, the challenge in the
UoH’s strategy strand about enterprise modules became evident in those courses
where enterprising modules were not yet embedded because course teams perceive their
course as being one which does not particularly need enterprising aspects. This applied
for example to Youth and Community Work, Criminology, Health & Nutrition, Photography
and Childhood Studies. All these courses do, however, have guest speakers from their
discipline and placement students sharing their experience with second-year students. An
audit of academic School’s performance in 2014 showed that the majority of Schools
either complied or were close to complying with the strategy requirement of an enterprise
module against QAA guidelines.
Continuous education
The UoH offers some continuous education in EE, i.e. education for people who already
left university and were employed elsewhere. However, the UoH does not put particular
weight on such offers. The UoH offers support to its graduates up to five years from
graduation through its Enterprise Skills series and Enterprise Support. These offers are
not accredited. The Business School can offer bespoke short courses, and UoH’s
Master’s level courses across all subject areas may include enterprise learning
opportunities.
Bridges to secondary education
The UoH also builds bridges to EE in secondary school education. The UoH was
founding partner in a regional business competition for 16-19 year olds named “Umph!”.
Various academic schools run “Dragon’s Den” style competitions for secondary schools
they are looking to recruit from. The UoH’s Events Management lecturers created a
competition for schools called “EVENTerprise”. The UoH has strong links with the
Kirklees Creative and Media Studio School and the Kirklees College Peter Jones
Enterprise Academy. The UoH also partners in an initiative for young people – not only
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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from secondary schools – in digital entrepreneurship named “iDEA - the inspiring Digital
Enterprise Award”.
5.2.3 Designing lectures and courses – basic curricular decisions
Objectives of entrepreneurship teaching
The UoH’s “Teaching and Learning Strategy 2013-2018” formulates three overall aims
which thus also applied to EE: “To inspire our students to attain the highest academic and
professional standards”, “to inspire our students to enjoy an outstanding university
experience”, and “to inspire employable and enterprising graduates”. Within the six
“enabling strands”, Strand 2 about “enterprising students” had the following four specific
objectives:
TB1. Tightening of definition of “work-related activity”, present in all courses, to include
significant “live” project & problem-solving elements.
TB2. Enterprise modules (against QAA enterprise learning outcomes, see QAA 2012) at
each level of every course.
TB3. Volunteering opportunities developed.
TB4. Enterprise / innovation placement year and enterprise final-year module to be
available to all students (subject to PSRB limitations).
Contents of entrepreneurship teaching
In its EE teaching, the UoH distinguishes between enterprise education (“having an idea
and making it happen”) from entrepreneurship education (“new venture creation”).
“Enterprise education” has a broader meaning of realising innovations, not necessarily
involving to start a business. The UoH provides both types, depending on student and
subject need. The Enterprise Team does not even promote using the term “entrepreneur”
but prefers terms like “business owner, “freelancer”, and “self-employed”. “Entrepreneur”
may be used in programmes where the lead academic deems it to be appropriate, for
example in the BA Enterprise Development degree.
The content of entrepreneurship teaching at the UoH differs according to the types of
courses and the aspirations of the target groups. EE at the UoH “needs to be context-
related”, said Pro-Vice Chancellor for Teaching and Learning, Tim Thornton, and other
interviewees. The degree courses at the Business School offer the full range of business
subjects needed to launch an enterprise on one’s own. All courses and modules across
the university include, or are planned to include by 2018, practical insights needed to
become enterprising or entrepreneurial. They are meant to motivate students to actually
do so, supporting their career, which may be as an entrepreneur, self-employed or as an
– enterprising thinking – employee. Entrepreneurship-related modules at non-business
schools make the students familiar with business issues related to their School’s area of
subjects, familiarising the students with things they need to know and be able to do in
case of actually launching a business. Enterprise or entrepreneurship education can be
presented as stand-alone modules, or embedded where Schools provide information that
familiarises the students with the opportunities of behaving entrepreneurial in specific
fields whilst studying their chosen subject.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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Methods and media
The UoH provides a wide range of methods and media in EE. Methods include, but are
not limited to, lectures and tutorials by staff or by guest speakers as well as case study
workshops. A method to which the UoH attributes specific importance is enterprise
placement for practical learning, live work-based elements and project work. Media
include for example videos about business practice, and business simulation software.
Similar to content, the range of methods and media applied differs by the types of
courses.
The UoH also runs a strategic project related to software for facilitating enterprising and
entrepreneurship. Supported by the University’s Teaching and Learning Institute, the UoH
was in 2014 exploring how the business simulation game SimVenture could be rolled
out across campus and used as a tool for embedding enterprise education in subjects as
diverse as business, fashion and psychology. SimVenture is commercial software that
was launched in 2006 and, according to the supplier in 2014, was used in more than 150
universities all over the world as well as in schools and in communities.
Informal evaluation of learning outcomes and feedback for students
Informal feedback to students about learning outcomes in EE, i.e. feedback regardless of
formal marks and credits, differs by the teachers concerned. Generally the UoH
encourages such informal feedback in order to reach the university’s overall aims, i.e. to
inspire graduates for attaining the highest academic and professional standards, enjoying
an outstanding university experience, and becoming employable and enterprising. The
UoH’s Enterprise Team also provides such informal evaluation and feedback.
Using results of entrepreneurship research
UoH researchers frequently carry out empirical studies about entrepreneurship and EE at
the own university and publish results in journal articles and conference papers (e.g.
Smith at al. 2013). The UoH also seeks to implement the lessons learned from
entrepreneurship research into teaching. UoH teachers share practice through best
practice sessions organised with bodies such as Enterprise Educators UK (EEUK),
Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE), VITAE (a national organisation
for postgraduate research students and early stage researchers), and through
presentations at relevant national and international conferences.
5.2.4 Setting of entrepreneurship teaching
EE at the UoH does take place in the university’s lecture halls and classrooms, but may
be more likely to be found in studios, workshops, and laboratories, and also in
businesses through long- and short-term placement opportunities. Occasionally there are
also excursions to enterprises in the region and other locations outside the university.
Such change of scene is supposed to enhance learning experiences and increase
learning motivation.
5.2.5 Instructors: teachers and mentors
Professors, other employees and external lecturers of the university
Teaching staff are primarily academics in their subject-specific area although many
modules include guest speakers from industry. The UoH has only a few teachers who
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
14
deal exclusively with entrepreneurship. At the end of 2014, the Business School’s staff list
named eleven professors, among them one explicitly for “entrepreneurship”, Gerard
McElwee.
8
There is also an emeritus professor in entrepreneurship, John Thompson.
Kelly Smith explained that at the UoH teaching enterprise and entrepreneurship is
“everyone’s responsibility”. Most teachers who impart EE at the UoH have another
specialty and teach enterprising and entrepreneurship on the basis of additionally
acquired knowledge and experience. This is part of the UoH’s specific approach to EE.
However, there is no compulsory requirement for UoH teachers to teach about
enterprising and entrepreneurship. So the UoH does not see a need to make teaching the
teachers obligatory. One of the interviewees from the Department of Informatics said that
one cannot compel teachers to teach entrepreneurship. Rather, there need to be
ambassadors for such teaching within the departments.
In 2012/2013, the UoH introduced a new promotion route for enterprise activity: the title of
“Principle Enterprise Fellow”, equivalent to “Reader” and “Principal Teaching Fellow”.
“Real entrepreneurs” as teachers
All UoH programmes of study are required to have industry or professional input into the
approval process. In many instances this will involve small business and entrepreneurs.
For example, the School of Art, Design and Architecture regularly benefits from co-
operation with industrial designers.
9
The University has an Entrepreneur in Residence – Professor Graham Leslie
10
– based
at the 3M Buckley Innovation Centre (3MBIC).
The University is also working with two Visiting Professors from the Royal Academy of
Engineering: President of 3M New Ventures Stefan Gabriel
11
and Jonathan Sands, the
CEO of leading brand agency Elmwood. They explore and deliver enterprise and
entrepreneurship education opportunities. More recently, Alan Lewis, one of the UK’s top
businessmen, was appointed Visiting Professor in Entrepreneurship.
The UoH has a Royal Society Lifetime Industry Fellow, and collaborative research
fellows linked to strategic partnerships with industry.
Mentors
The UoH’s Business School has an Advisory Panel with entrepreneurial representation.
12
It also has schemes with partners in law and accountancy which provide students with
networking, mentoring and training opportunities via internationally renowned legal and
accountancy firms.
13
8
Last accessed June 2014.
9
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/research/researchcentres/circ/externalrelationships/.
10
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/business/visitingprofessors/grahamleslie/.
11
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/news/allstories/3mpresidentbecomesvisitingprofessor.php.
12
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/uhbs/businessschool-about/advisoryboard/.
13
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/uhbs/businessschool-about/partnersinlaw/.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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5.2.6 Management of entrepreneurship education
Teacher and trainer management
“Teaching the teachers” is a particularly important issue at the UoH because the
teachers at the different schools teach about enterprise and entrepreneurship issues
while their main expertise is in a different academic discipline. The UoH has a multiple
approach to teaching the teachers, consisting of internal and external elements:
(1) Internal information: The Enterprise Team aims to be present at all relevant
networking events at the UoH in order to talk with teachers about EE and offers to
support related teaching. The Enterprise Team has built up a network of EE
“ambassadors” across all schools who help spread information about EE and the
Enterprise Team.
(2) Internal consulting on demand: On demand, the members of the UoH’s Enterprise
Team consult teachers – individually and in groups – about how to teach enterprising
and entrepreneurship. Such inquiries reach the Enterprise Team about once a week.
Head of Enterprise Kelly Smith said she has “a suite of presentations and workshops
that I run as required by academic schools”.
If teachers need industry-specific
information, the Enterprise Team can help retrieve it by tapping into a licensed
business reference resource. In some cases the UoH’s Teaching and Learning
Institute (TALI) helps.
(3) Internal workshops for open audience: The UoH also offers workshops for an
open audience. In January 2014 TALI held a half-day workshop called “Enterprise
Matters” which is planned to become a separate annual event.
14
(4) External training: The UoH is member of EEUK, the UK’s national network for
enterprise educators which has the objective “to support our members to increase the
scale, scope and effectiveness of enterprise and entrepreneurship teaching within
their institutions” (http://www.enterprise.ac.uk/). Some members of UoH staff
attended Best Practice Workshops.
(5) Internal and external conference participation: EEUK also offers an annual
International Entrepreneurship Education Conference. On site, enterprise regularly
features within the UoH’s annual Teaching and Learning Conference. The 2010
conference had enterprise explicitly in the title.
15
The Enterprise Team’s approach is to encourage and to empower teachers to teach EE
themselves. This has several reasons: The Enterprise Team is small and cannot deliver
many lectures across the university; it increases respect for the teacher among students
if he or she teaches EE him- or herself; and students are more willing to take up
knowledge from a teacher with the right pedigree. Thus, individual consulting of teachers
about EE often takes the form of encouragement to use and build upon own existing
expertise. Kelly Smith said that oftentimes teachers have more entrepreneurial expertise
than they are aware of, for example from working as freelancers or from working as
“enterprising” employees in specific industries.
As EE teaching is voluntary and as the UoH is a large institution, one could assume a
communication challenge to make the offers for teaching the teachers known among
14
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/tali/projects/sp_enterprise/ent_matters/.
15
See proceedings athttp://www.hud.ac.uk/tali/prof_dev/tl_conf/.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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teaching staff. Due to the “Entrepreneurial University of the Year” award in 2012 and the
related promotion, every UoH teacher should either know about the existence of the
Enterprise Team or know someone who can direct to this team. Furthermore, the
Enterprise Team communicates their offers through the UoH’s central marketing team.
Research for this case study suggests that this scope of teaching the teachers ensures a
sufficiently high quality of EE teaching at the UoH. As the lecturer from the School of
Music, Humanities and Media who runs the “Magazine Design and Production” module
said: “We don’t have the strict business knowledge, but it’s not necessary, what we have
is industry expertise.” In this module, if specific expertise is needed which the teacher
cannot provide, they invite guest speakers, often alumni, for example in the panel for
magazine assessment.
Managing student support
The UoH has a unit dedicated to managing student support in the field of
entrepreneurship, the Enterprise Team headed by Kelly Smith. The Enterprise Team is
there, according to its homepage, “to support you right from the beginning to help you
grow your seed of an idea into a successful business”. The Enterprise Team offers
support not only to current students but also to those who graduated within the past five
years. It offers “one to one business advice and coaching” as well as hot desk facilities in
the Duke of York Young Entrepreneur Centre with free access to computer, printer,
telephone and meeting rooms. Students may also apply for a Proof of Concept Grant of
up to £500. Support may be continuous; the Enterprise Team invites to “periodic updates
to review your progress”
16
. The Enterprise Team also offers a free events series providing
an introduction to various aspects of business and self-employment. Sessions include
advice on writing a business plan, researching the market, branding a product and
developing essential networking skills.
17
The status of being a Santander University (see
section 1.1.3 above, financial resources) helps the UoH provide additional proof of
concept and business start-up grants, and enables participation in national Santander
pitching and business planning competitions for students and recent graduates.
Internal and external network management
The UoH offers regular opportunities to discuss and share opinions and experiences
about EE. Enterprise education often emerges naturally in other teaching and learning
and support services events, too. Entrepreneurs, who may be alumni, are often invited
back for guest lectures through academic schools and staff contacts. Alumni of the
Enterprise Team’s student and graduate entrepreneurship support regularly return to
speak to the next generation of supported students and the UoH can link them into
academic schools too as required.
Management of curricular integration and attracting new groups of students
The UoH manages the integration of enterprise and entrepreneurship modules into
curricula through its defined overall aims, its strategy and, operationally, through the
Enterprise Team. In this way all students will deal with enterprise or venturing at some
point of every course.
16
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/enterprise/enterprisesupport.
17
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/enterprise/enterpriseawareness/.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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Evaluation of courses and programmes
Each School at the UoH is required to respond to the teaching and learning strategy with
plans to the University’s Teaching and Learning Committee for approval – this will include
explicit reference to enterprising students. Also, in 2014, the annual evaluation of
teaching and learning included the following question: “How are enterprising skills being
defined and developed in student work?” Individual module evaluations will differ and
enterprise activities may or may not be explicitly covered. The UoH encourages academic
staff to evaluate this however, and can support them to publish or present at conferences.
5.3 Extra-curricular activities in entrepreneurship education
Overview about extra-curricular EE activities at the UoH
The UoH offers numerous extra-curricular EE activities which are however not focused in
this study. Some are directly dealing with entrepreneurship or enterprise, others just
include it among other themes. Activities directly related to EE include, above all, the
Enterprise Team’s activities: business skills workshops, general enterprise support, the
SimVenture business simulation game, Collabhub and Huddersfield Enterprise Society
meetings and social media platforms. On a regional level, the Graduate Entrepreneurship
project is directly about EE. Activities dealing with EE among other themes include an
annual teaching and learning conference that also deals with being enterprising.
Exhibit 5-2: Overview about extra-curricular EE activities at the University of Huddersfield
No. Name Objectives Target group Offered
since
[year]
No. of
participants
in [year]
Direct relation to EE
1 Business skills
workshops
Raising awareness for
enterprise and
entrepreneurship
UoH students and
graduates
2007 25 – 50 per
workshop
(2014)
2 Start-up support Up to one year start-up
support (finance, office
space in Duke of York
Young Entrepreneurs
Centre)
UoH students and
graduates
2006 ? 100 (2014)
3 Graduate
Entrepreneurship
Project
Promote entrepreneurship,
advise about it, and facilitate
access to start-up resources
Students and
graduates in
Yorkshire and
Humber Region
2009
(Transferred
to UoH as
Lead
Partner)
? 8,800 (2010
– 2014)
4 Honeypot Software and event to pitch
start-up ideas and assemble
teams
UoH students 2013
880
5 Innovation and Creative
Exchange (ICE)
Lectures, workshops,
networking events and skill
exchanges aiming to bring
the best of innovative design
and industry thinking into the
undergraduate curriculum
Engineering and
design students
2013 (2013 – 2014,
Honeypot and
ICE together)
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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Indirect relation to EE
7 Annual conference
“Teaching and
Learning”
Enterprise and
entrepreneurship featured in
some way.
Academic teaching
professionals
2006 ?180
8 SimVenture business
simulation game
Tool for embedding
enterprise education in
different university subjects.
To be defined 2014 ? 20
9 Collabhub Pitching ideas for
enterprising projects and find
collaborators
All UoH students,
also UoH staff and
community
members
2013 > 50 (2014)
Start-up support from the UoH’s Enterprise Team
The UoH’s Enterprise Team supports around 100 individuals in around 80 pre-start
companies a year, of which at least 35 will convert into sustainable business start-ups.
Support is provided in two tiers:
1. Enterprise Awareness: Primarily a series of 15 to 20 business skills workshops a
year with each attracting 25 to 50 attendees.
2. Enterprise Support: Up to a year’s free pre-start and early stage start-up support
including access to business advisors, hot desk office space in the UoH’s Duke of
York Young Entrepreneurs Centre which is part of the 3M Buckley Innovation
Centre, micro grants for proof of concept, and other services for students and recent
graduates up to five years from graduation.
There also used to be an activity named Activ8 Your Business, an intensive six-month
support scheme with a start-up grant for recent graduates and new venture creation
degree students. It ended in August 2013 due to the immanent closure of the ERDF
programme that funded it.
Collabhub: a new type of enterprise society
Until very recently, the University did not have a traditionally recognised “enterprise
society”. Huddersfield Enterprise Society was founded in December 2014 and launched
in January 2015. However, a new type of enterprise society was seeded in 2013 by a
senior lecturer in Music Technology, Elizabeth Dobson, and is generating much attention,
internally and externally:
18
Collabhub – Innovation Through Collaboration. Collabhub
encourages students from all disciplines to pitch ideas for enterprising projects and find
collaborators – including staff and members of the local community – through Facebook
or face-to-face events. Collabhub is an example of an initiative that is rather
unintentionally “entrepreneurial”, as Elizabeth Dobson said: “Initially I had no 'affinity' with
the terms enterprising or entrepreneurship. I recognise that CollabHub is enterprising,
and how incredibly enterprising our students are by way of this 'platform'.”
Honeypot: using software to assemble start-up teams
Honeypot stands for Huddersfield Open Network for Enterprise Creativity, Prototype
Design and Test. It provides special software that enables UoH students to pitch their
ideas and then assemble teams of fellow students who between them have the requisite
18
See also Dobson (2015).
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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set of skills. Honeypot is interdisciplinary, it targets students from arts and computing: 500
second-year students from selected courses within the UoH’s School of Art, Design and
Architecture and School of Computing and Engineering are eligible to register. There are
prizes to win: The idea that in the end scoops the most votes wins a set of vouchers.
Some projects may also receive funding for proof-of-concept. Stefan Gabriel, President of
3M New Ventures mentors the project.
19
Honeypot is financially backed by the Royal
Academy for Engineering. While Honeypot is currently extra-curricular, additional
curriculum-based elements are planned.
Start-up events
The UoH offers several rather traditional events to support start-ups and entrepreneurial
behaviour. Innovation and Creative Exchange (ICE) is a series of lectures, workshops,
networking events and skill exchanges – and also a more untraditional “24 hour design
challenge”. It aims to bring “innovative design and industry thinking into the
undergraduate curriculum” and to embed “innovation and design methodologies into the
curriculum for engineering and design students”.
20
Like Honeypot, ICE is financially
backed by the Royal Academy for Engineering.
Among the extra-curricular activities that include EE among other themes is an annual
“Teaching and Learning” conference where enterprise and entrepreneurship
education has featured in some way every year for at least since 2010. For example, the
theme of the 2010 conference was “Connections between Teaching and Learning and
Research and Enterprise”.
Graduate Entrepreneurship Project: regional universities support start-ups
On a regional level, the Graduate Entrepreneurship Project (GE) partners all ten higher
education institutions in Yorkshire and the Humber to provide start-up support to students
and graduates. The UoH has been the lead partner since 2009. The project enables each
institution to provide a wide range of enterprise support in terms of guidance, finance or
networking with like-minded individuals. According to GE’s website, the project is “widely
recognised as an exemplar of best practice in enterprise education in the UK and EU”.
21
Specifically, it offers business start-up advice, proof-of-concept funding up to £1,000,
start-up grants up to £2,500, an annual four-day residential boot camp, and an annual
awards scheme. GE attracted £1.3 million of investment from the European Regional
Development Fund (EDRF) as part of Europe’s support for local economic development
through the Yorkshire and Humber ERDF Programme 2007–13. Between September
2010 and March 2014, the project worked with over 2,600 student and graduates looking
to start-up, with over 8,800 attendees to start-up events.
Managing extra-curricular activities
Research findings for this case study suggest that managers of extra-curricular activities
may not necessarily need any instructions or training in order to “instruct” about
19
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/schools/artdesignandarchitecture/enterpriseandengagement/studentprojec
ts/studentname,92591,en.php.
20
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/schools/artdesignandarchitecture/enterpriseandengagement/studentprojec
ts/studentname,92590,en.php.
21
Quoted fromhttp://graduateentrepreneurship.co.uk/about/.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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enterprise and entrepreneurship. Motivating may be more important, as Elizabeth
Dobson, initiator of the Collabhub initiative, said: “I'm not sure what 'entrepreneurial skills'
are, but Kelly [Head of the Enterprise Team] identified and supported the work that I was
doing. By celebrating and encouraging it she gave me confidence to continue and believe
that it was making positive changes. (...) I probably wouldn't have time to attend any talks
or events, the seed comes from my own idea supported by the enterprise team. This, for
me, is enough.”
As regards the issue of curricular integration, research for this case study found no
tendency to move extra-curricular activities to curricular offers. Students were found to be
highly motivated to spend time on extra-curricular activities when it is rewarding for
themselves, their study and their career.
5.4 Institutional aspects of entrepreneurship education
5.4.1 Organisational set-up and change
Measures for coordinating and integrating EE across the university
Following his appointment as Vice Chancellor in 2007, Bob Cryan placed a strong
emphasis on enterprise. He put in place a supportive infrastructure with the appointments
of a Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and Enterprise, a Director of Research and
Enterprise, and a Head of Enterprise responsible for student and graduate enterprise and
business start-up. For EE in curricula the Pro-Vice Chancellor for Teaching and Learning
is in charge. The Vice-Chancellor's Office is responsible for the co-ordination and
integration of university business, providing advice and support to the Vice-Chancellor on
strategic, policy and management matters. The Vice-Chancellor’s Office works closely
with Directors from across the University. The Directors play an important role in advising
the Vice-Chancellor on the management of the University in pursuing its vision, aims and
objectives. The School’s Deans are also actively engaged.
Kelly Smith pointed out that the Teaching and Learning Strategy 2013 – 2018 strand for
“Enterprising Students” and the events and projects put in place by the university’s
Schools to facilitate the strand’s delivery, demonstrate how the UoH combines top-down
strategy and bottom-up staff experience into organisational change.
The university has an Enterprise Team unit that helps students and graduates actively
explore self-employment and business through pre-start and early-stage trading activities.
The enterprise team also plays an important role in supporting teachers from the various
Schools of the UoH to developing their ability to teach about enterprise and
entrepreneurship. At the end of 2014, the Enterprise Team had four core employees: the
Head of Enterprise (Kelly Smith) as well as two business advisors and an office
administrator.
Influence of external stakeholders in the EE programmes
Several external stakeholders have been facilitating the UoH’s organisational change
towards putting enterprise and entrepreneurship at the core of the university’s strategy.
These include for example the Duke of York, Stefan Gabriel from 3M, and business
leader Theo Paphitis.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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5.4.2 Laws, statutes and codes
Incentives for staff to engage in or support entrepreneurship education
As regards incentives for staff to engage in or support EE, Kelly Smith explained that the
UoH’s academic schools and the staff in them work towards delivery of the teaching and
learning strategy. Other than this there are no incentives as such – it is just a normal part
of what the UoH’s teaching staff does. There are however, progression routes for
enterprising staff. For example, the UoH has Principal Enterprise Fellows equivalent to
Readers (of which Kelly Smith is one) which recognises enterprise-related expertise.
There is also a professorial route for enterprise. However, teaching and learning are also
recognised in this way and excellence in enterprise education can feature in both.
Incentives for other stakeholders contributing to entrepreneurship education
As regards incentives for other stakeholders contributing to EE, Kelly Smith explained
that there may be some remuneration. However, most guest lecturers will not be
incentivised and would probably not expect to be. Much is done on a pro bono basis.
5.4.3 Mindsets and attitudes
A commitment to develop entrepreneurial mindsets and encourage entrepreneurial
behaviour can be seen in all items mentioned above. Further examples include working
with a social enterprise fund for Universities – HEFCE UnLtd – to provide grants to staff,
students, and graduates up to one year to encourage social enterprise start-up. Eleven
grants were provided to the value of £42,000. One of the grants helped start-up
Collabhub described above. A second helped seed a social enterprise support
consultancy idea called CASE Futures lead by University staff, one of which has now
registered for an Enterprise Doctorate to explore business models and potential spin out.
In another recent initiative, a student-led “law clinic” and an events management
company run by placement students took up residence in a Huddersfield shopping centre
to offer their services to the community.
22
These endeavours lead by entrepreneurial staff
were supported by their academic Schools and encourage entrepreneurial thinking in the
students involved.
The results of a recent survey of 100 post-graduate research students at the UoH
showed that the majority of them identified with entrepreneurial attributes (Smith at al.
2013): “They were positive towards enterprise skills development with a large majority
(>60%) rating it as important or very important. 65% felt that their research could have
commercial impact, and 38% reported that starting up their own business appealed to
them.”
Research findings suggest that there are also UoH teachers who are reserved about
enterprise and entrepreneurship. However, to some extent it may rather be a matter of
wording, as one interviewee said: “Some tutors are put off by the words [enterprise and
entrepreneurship] as they are associated with business. Especially more traditional
disciplines. Staff use all kinds of language that fosters enterprising behaviours, i.e. talks
about the (..) industry, starting business, transferable skills, innovating, inventing,
designing.”
22
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/uhbs/lawclinic/.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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5.5 Outreach to external stakeholders of EE
5.5.1 External stakeholders involved in entrepreneurship education
Enterprises
The UoH involves many external stakeholders and many different types of stakeholders
into its EE. Enterprises play a particularly important role. All of the university’s study
programmes are required to have industry or professional input into the approval process.
In many instances this will involve small business and entrepreneurs. Several modules
will include guest speakers such as entrepreneurs in lectures. Enterprises and
entrepreneurs benefit for example the School of Art, Design and Architecture.
23
As
another example, the UoH’s Business School has an Advisory Panel with entrepreneurial
representation
24
and Partners in Law and Partners in Accountancy schemes which
provides students with networking, mentoring and training opportunities via internationally
renowned legal and accountancy firms.
25
The UoH has strategic alliances with 3M and Siemens. Entrepreneur Theo Paphitis,
owner of the UK stationary company Ryman, has delivered master classes and has
invited students to Ryman’s Head Quarters.
Financial institutions
In the field of EE, the UoH interacts with Funding Circle, a large peer-to-peer funding
platform (see section 1.1.3 above).
Support services
The university has strong links with the Local Enterprise Partnership and Kirklees
Council’s Economic and Creative Economy teams. It has Partners in Law and Partners in
Accountancy schemes. Consults often give their time pro bono to help support students’
business ideas. The Enterprise Team has also negotiated support, pro bono in the first
instance, with specialist providers such as IP Lawyers. There are links with the local
Chamber of Commerce, and support potential via the 3MBIC incubator.
Incubators, accelerators, science parks and technology parks
The UoH’s campus hosts the 3M Buckley Innovation Centre, “where global companies
(..) sit alongside innovative start-ups and our best student and graduate businesses”. The
centre was funded with £12 million by the ERDF. The UoH considers it a “cross-sector
hub for open innovation”. The UoH is also a partner in a project to establish a so-called
Globe Innovation Centre in West Yorkshire, linked with the 3MBIC.
26
In January 2015 the
UoH was awarded funds towards another university-related incubator for advanced
manufacturing and the digital and creative industries.
23
See examples athttp://www.hud.ac.uk/research/researchcentres/circ/externalrelationships/.
24
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/uhbs/businessschool-about/advisoryboard/.
25
See for examplehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/uhbs/businessschool-about/partnersinlaw/.
26
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/news/2014/january/theglobeinnovationcentregrantedplanningapproval.php
.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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5.5.2 International relationships
The UoH’s international relationships in EE include, for example, educator training
through attendance and presentations at international conferences, being part of the
Santander international network of Universities, and links with 3M as a global company
supporting.
5.6 Impact and lessons learned
5.6.1 Evaluating impacts of entrepreneurship education
Overview of impact evaluation methods applied
While the UoH does not as yet systematically collect and analyse data about the impact
of its entrepreneurship education, there is quantitative and qualitative data indicating such
impact. Impact indicators relate to numbers of students supported in starting a business,
numbers of students who started a business, and the survival rate of these businesses.
Statistics on students supported and on start-ups from the UoH
The UoH’s submission to the UK’s National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education
2012 bi-annual mapping survey showed that over 7,000 students benefitted from
curricular offers and extra-curricular enterprise activities. The university’s Enterprise
Team helps more than 100 students and graduates per year to explore self-employment
and business through pre-start activities. Approximately 35 students and graduates per
year have converted their explorations into actual start-up to date. The UoH expects this
figure to increase with an increase in the numbers being supported since opening of the
Duke of York Young Entrepreneur Centre in 2013. Kelly Smith said that “our Enterprise
Team (...) has helped literally hundreds of new entrepreneurs start their business
journey”. The UoH ranks in the UK top ten for undergraduate and postgraduate
employability, student placements in industry, and the number of student and graduate
businesses supported. The UoH ranked 11
th
for graduate businesses surviving more than
three years in 2012.
27
Data from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education
(DLHE) survey in 2011/2012 and 2012/2013 showed that the vast majority of self-
employed graduates remain in the North of England six months after graduation. See
Annex 3 of this case study for more detailed data about start-ups and self-employment of
UoH graduates.
Such impact data need however to be interpreted cautiously. In a working paper for the
ISBE 2014 conference, Kelly Smith (2014) concluded on the values of UK surveys about
start-ups from universities: “The overall picture is complex and issues are present in each
data set that need careful consideration in order to understand what is being shown. (...)
Data on HE-support student and graduate business start-up is routinely collected via
surveys and reports to external funders but there is a lack of literature assessing their
reliability and appropriateness for measuring impact of the HE sector on start-up, survival,
and growth.”
27
Data from University of Huddersfield (2012).
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
24
Qualitative indicators of UoH EE impact
UoH students and business support alumni have been regular winners of regional and
national competitions relating to enterprise and entrepreneurship. They have been
featured on television programmes including BBC 3’s “Be Your Own Boss”.
28
Research for this case study found that the UoH’s intention is to foster the emergence of
small businesses, not necessarily fast-growing ones. As UoH’s entrepreneurship
Professor Gerard McElwee said: “There is a case to argue that there can be more value
to the regional economy in creating ten small ventures than one larger SME. Multi-
disciplinary approaches to supporting new venture creation has to be the way forward,
whereby students and staff from differing disciplines work together to create new
opportunities.” Some examples of new business established by students and graduates:
? EG Visuals Ltd., an animations service provider, by recent graduates and Duke of
York Young Entrepreneurs of the Year Award winners;
? Jacob Hill of the Lazy Camper, a provider of quality camping equipment, in
September 2014 a BA Enterprise Development degree student;
? U-Lott, a university lottery provider, a social enterprise started by two BA Enterprise
Development degree students;
? Hypersloth, a computer-animated games studio started by Enterprise Placement
Year Alumni and UoH students;
? ProperMaid, an innovative baking product caterer, started by a graduate from 2008.
Impact through board memberships
UoH experts also provide high-level leadership in entrepreneurship education through
sitting on boards of Enterprise Educators UK and the Institute of Small Business and
Entrepreneurship as well as actively contributing to national policy including the QAA
Guidelines for Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Education. UoH staff and PhD students
regularly present at events and publish on enterprise education topics.
29
5.6.2 Lessons learned
Summary of lessons learned from this case
The UoH provides insightful experiences on many different levels, mainly in
conceptualisation and organisation. All in all, five key “lessons learned” can be extracted
from the case study. They explain the foundations for the UoH’s approach to make every
student encounter EE at some point of study and to make EE teaching “everyone’s
responsibility”:
Conceptualisation of “entrepreneurship” as “enterprising and venturing”: The UoH
distinguishes between “enterprise” (“having an idea and making it happen”) in the sense
of behaving entrepreneurially without necessarily starting a business, and
“entrepreneurship” in the sense of new venture creation, i.e. actually starting a business.
This conceptualisation may help reaching students who do not seek to start a business –
and teachers who do not seek to support students in starting businesses – but who may
apply their enterprising thinking and behaviour for the benefit of their individual career
28
Data from University of Huddersfield (2012).
29
Information from University of Huddersfield (2012).
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
25
and for the economy and society at large. For some students and teachers even the term
“enterprise” may be unattractive. They may prefer terms like designing, inventing,
innovating.
Ensuring sustainability of EE through support from high management: Strong
leadership from the Vice Chancellor was apparently the most important reason why
entrepreneurship and EE became key objectives of the UoH and were developed ever
stronger in the past five years. Having established the positions of a Pro-Vice Chancellor
for Research and Enterprise, a Director for Enterprise and a Head of Enterprise as well
as involving the Deans helps sustain these objectives.
Enabling EE throughout the university’s schools through decentralised teaching:
Kelly Smith stated that “perhaps the novelty of our approach is that you can find
enterprise and entrepreneurship education almost everywhere at the University of
Huddersfield”. The UoH seeks to ensure delivering EE throughout the university by
involving teachers who are no experts in entrepreneurship. This approach can be
characterised as decentralised, as opposed to a possible approach in which EE courses
are offered through one central unit, which could potentially be the business school.
Enabling non-business teachers to impart EE through a train-the-teachers concept:
The UoH enables non-business teachers to impart EE through a concept for “training the
trainers”. Internally, the concept includes support from the UoH’s Enterprise Team, staff
development sessions organised by the Teaching and Learning Institute, and attendance
at enterprise-related sessions at the UoH’s annual Teaching and Learning Conference.
Externally, support includes instructions from Enterprise Educators UK (the UK’s national
network for enterprise educators) as well as attendance of EE good practice workshops
and the annual International Entrepreneurship Education Conference.
Supporting enterprising students and managing EE through an “Enterprise Team”:
The UoH’s Enterprise Team, an organisational unit of the UoH, plays a crucial role in
supporting enterprising students as well as contributing to the development of EE across
the university’s Schools.
Transferability to other universities
EE at the UoH has many characteristics that could potentially be adopted by other
universities. This may apply in particular to the Enterprise Team as an organisational unit
as well as decentralised EE teaching and a specific concept for teaching the teachers.
The UoH does not have a very specific profile, no outstanding endowments and no very
specific preconditions that would make it particularly difficult to transfer its approach
elsewhere. One could assume that the UoH’s approach might work best at universities
with a traditional strength in engineering and business, just as the UoH. However, the
UoH is also strong at fields that are not obviously linked with enterprise and
entrepreneurship but which have considerable related activities.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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References
Research for this case study was conducted by Stefan Lilischkis, senior consultant and
researcher at empirica GmbH, member of the team of the study for supporting the
entrepreneurial potential of higher education (sepHE). Sources and references used
include the following.
Interviews
Gerard McElwee, Professor of Entrepreneurship, Business School, University of
Huddersfield, 9 December 2014.
Michelle Waite and Daniel Bye, Enterprising graduates, Business School, University
of Huddersfield, 9 December 2014.
Philip Clegg, Enterprise Team, University of Huddersfield, 9 December 2014
Focus group discussion with four students of the BA Enterprise Development
degree and participating observation in an ensuing lecture about social enterprise,
Business School, University of Huddersfield, 9 December 2014.
Mike Kagioglou, Dean, School of Art, Design and Architecture, University of
Huddersfield, 8 December 2014.
Ruth Taylor, Senior Lecturer, Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield /
Damian De Luca, Executive Director, Canalside Studios, University of Huddersfield,
8 December 2014.
Wolfgang Faber, Reader, School of Computing and Engineering, University of
Huddersfield, 8 December 2014.
Jess Power, Director of Teaching and Learning, School of Art, Design and
Architecture, University of Huddersfield / Leigh Flemming, Subject Area Leader for
Mechanical Engineering, School of Computing and Engineering, University of
Huddersfield, 8 December 2014.
Caroline Pringle, Senior Lecturer in Digital and Practical Journalism, School of
Music, Humanities and Media, University of Huddersfield, 8 December 2014.
Tim Thornton, Dean, School of Music, Humanities and Media; Pro Vice-Chancellor
for Teaching and Learning, 8 December 2014.
Kelly Smith, Head of Enterprise, University of Huddersfield, 6 August 2014, written
responses to questionnaire.
Kelly Smith, Head of Enterprise, University of Huddersfield, 16 May 2014, phone
interview.
Literature
Anderson, Stu; Culkin, Nigel; Penaluna, Andy; Smith, Kelly (2014): An Education System
fit for an Entrepreneur. Fifth Report by the All?Party Parliamentary Group for Micro
Businesses. February.
Dobson, Elizabeth (2015): Permission to Play: Fostering Enterprise Creativities in Music
Technology through Extracurricular Interdisciplinary Collaboration. In: Burnard,
Pamela; Haddon, Elizabeth (2015): Activating Diverse Musical Creativities – Teaching
and Learning in Higher Music Education. Chapter 5. Bloomsbury Academic.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
27
HESA, Higher Education Statistics Agency (2014a): Table 1 - All students by HE
institution, level of study, mode of study and domicile 2012/13. Excel file. Last
accessed 12/5/2014. (Downloaded fromhttp://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php/content/view/1973/239/.)
HESA, Higher Education Statistics Agency (2014b): Table 1 - Table 1 - All staff by HE
institution, academic employment marker and mode of employment 2012/13. Excel
file. Last accessed 12/5/2014. (Downloaded fromhttp://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php/content/view/1973/239/.)
QAA, The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (2012): Enterprise and
entrepreneurship education: Guidance for UK higher education providers. September.
(Downloaded fromhttp://www.qaa.ac.uk/en/Publications/Documents/enterprise-
entrepreneurship-guidance.pdf.)
Smith, Kelly; Williams, Dina; Yasin, Naveed; Pitchford, Ian (2013): Enterprise skills and
training needs of postgraduate research students.
Smith, Kelly (2014): Measuring the impact of enterprise education and entrepreneurship
support in Higher Education: Can routinely collected data be of use? Working paper
for the ISBE Conference 2014. Forthcoming.
University of Huddersfield (2013): Teaching and Learning Strategy 2013-2018. (Available
athttp://www.hud.ac.uk/media/universityofhuddersfield/content/tlinstitute/documents/tl_st
rategy_2013-18.pdf, last accessed 15/5/2014).
University of Huddersfield (2013): Annual Review 2012. (Available athttp://www.hud.ac.uk/media/universityofhuddersfield/content/documents/aboutus/3689
7_UoH_Annual_Review-low%20FINAL.pdf, last accessed on 15/5/2014).
University of Huddersfield (2012): Untitled extract from the expanded submission to the
competition “entrepreneurial university of the year”. Informal document.
Wilson, Tim (2012): A Review of Business–University Collaboration.
Professor Sir Tim Wilson DL. February 2012.
Witty, Andrew (2013): Encouraging a British Invention Revolution: Sir Andrew Witty’s
Review of Universities and Growth. Final report and recommendations. October 2013.
Young, David (2014): Enterprise for all. The relevance of enterprise in education. June.
Websites
3M Buckley Innovation Centre (3MBIC):http://www.3mbic.com.
Canal Side Studios:http://www.canalsidestudios.com/about.html.
Collabhub:https://www.facebook.com/groups/collabhub/.
Dragon’s Den:http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006vq92.
EG Visuals:http://www.egvisuals.co.uk/, last accessed 28/9/2014.
Funding Circle:https://www.hud.ac.uk/news/allstories/firstuniversitytoinvestinpeer-to-
peerlending.php, last accessed 25/8/2014.
Hypersloth Company:http://www.hypersloth.co.uk/, last accessed 28/9/2014.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
28
iDEA - the inspiring Digital Enterprise Award:http://www.hud.ac.uk/news/2014/august/unibacksgoodidea-
theinspiringdigitalenterpriseaward.php, last accessed 28/9/2014.
Jacob Hill of the Lazy Camper Company:http://www.thelazycamper.co.uk/jacob-hill-24-
w.asp, last accessed 28/9/2014.
ProperMaid:http://www.propermaid.co.uk/about-us/, last accessed 29/9/2014.
The Globe Innovation Centre granted planning approval, UoH news, 24/1/2014:http://www.hud.ac.uk/news/2014/january/theglobeinnovationcentregrantedplanningapp
roval.php.
U-Lott Company:http://u-lott.com/our-business, last accessed 28/9/2014.
Umph!:http://www.umph.uk.com/?page_id=2.
University of Huddersfield, Enterprise Team:https://www.hud.ac.uk/enterprise/, last
accessed 27/1/2015.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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Annex 1: Contents of EE degree courses
Enterprise Development BA(Hons) 2014-15
At a Glance
UCAS code: N190
Start date: 22 / 09 / 2014
Duration: 3 years full-time
Places Available: 30 (this number may be subject to change)
Course Type: Full Time
Entry Requirements: Minimum entry requirements include one of the following:
• BBB at A Level
• From DMM-DDM in National Diploma
• 300 UCAS tariff points
We welcome students of any age and will consider each applicant, via interview, on the
strength of their motivation and suitability for the course. Entrants to the course would be
expected to demonstrate the following personal qualities: self assurance and self
confidence; motivation to do something on their own; a willingness to accept
responsibility for their own decisions and actions; in possession of drive and a
determination to succeed; comfortable with setbacks.
The course
This distinctive and original course has been designed to help young entrepreneurs start
and run their own business whilst studying for a degree. Dragons’ Den panellist and self-
made retail millionaire Theo Paphitis has given his support and backing for this
pioneering degree at Huddersfield. Over the three years of the course you'll have the
benefit of access to several successful entrepreneurs, including Theo, who has agreed to
mentor students with his very own ‘Masterclass’. In a managed risk environment you'll
screen opportunities to find one with real potential, plan the business, launch it and grow
it. We develop the idea, the person and the business so you can graduate with both a
degree and a viable business. You'll receive guidance and mentoring from our own
Enterprise Team business incubation service and from external professionals, as well as
help in finding the necessary funding to get your business off the ground.
Course content
On this course you’ll start your own business while you study the necessary business
disciplines. You will focus initially on the process of identifying and screening a number of
ideas, homing in on one that is viable. Once you’ve decided on your business
opportunity, you’ll develop your plan and start your enterprise. Finally, you’ll operate your
business in the final year and gain credits from this experiential learning. We maintain
links with a wide range of successful businesses and organisations. We encourage you to
network with successful role model entrepreneurs, professional experts and external
mentors as well as our Business School and Enterprise Team staff. Most types of
business are relevant and possible and there is some opportunity to study more technical
support modules from across the University.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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Year 1
+ Marketing Analysis
+ Enterprise Development 1: Developing The Entrepreneur
+ The Legal Environment of Business and Employment
+ Accounting for Managers (Foundation)
+ Creativity and Innovation for Business
Year 2
+ Small Business Enterprise and Planning
+ Management and Research Methods
+ Enterprise Development II - Developing the Business Plan
Plus one option choice of either:
+ Customer Insight
or
+ Market Research and Consultancy
or these three modules:
+ Marketing Communications
+ The Customer Experience
+ Introduction to Operations Management
Year 3
+ Business and the Entrepreneur
+ Enterprise Development III - Developing the Business
+ Enterprise Development Dissertation
Teaching and assessment
You'll learn through lectures, seminars and tutorials, with a strong focus on practical work.
Our varied assessment methods, which include assignments, exams and individual
project work, are focused upon the development of transferable skills which will provide
immediate benefit in your future career.
Facilities
The Business School was opened in 2010 at a cost of £17m and is the most eco-friendly
building on campus. It's a state-of-the art facility and provides you with a modern,
professional environment in which to learn and develop. Located right next to the
Huddersfield Narrow Canal it’s in a leafy and picturesque location at the heart of the
campus.
Our students can take advantage of start-up facilities and business support in the Centre
for Young Entrepreneurs. The Centre is located in the University’s new £12 million 3M
Buckley Innovation Centre which was opened by HRH The Duke of York in May 2013.
(Source:http://www.hud.ac.uk/courses/2014-15/full-time/undergraduate/enterprise-development-
ba-hons/, last accessed 15/5/2014)
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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Master of Enterprise
The Masters of Enterprise (MEnt) programme allows you to undertake a one year (full
time) or two year (part time) research degree. It contains little or no formal taught
component. Such programmes are attractive to those wanting a briefer research degree
than a PhD. It is ideal for individuals wishing to explore a potential business or social
enterprise idea, either to start-up their own business or for a new venture within public- or
private-sector organisations. The emphasis will be on enterprise creation and personal
entrepreneurial development within the chosen area, rather than on the study of business
organisations. On graduation, you will have acquired entrepreneurial knowledge,
behaviours, and skills with the ability to use research to develop and underpin your ideas.
Depending on your research project, you will be in a position to take a new service or
product to market; increase your likelihood of success in business, social enterprise, or
self-employment; and have a better understanding of issues impacting on enterprise
activity related to your area of research.
The Research Programme
The programme of research normally involves a literature study, followed by the critical
and reflective development of an evidence-supported business plan. The supporting
evidence might include market research; empirical testing of materials, methods, or
procedure; or full discussion of appropriate academic literature. A short version of the
business plan should be provided in an appendix to your research thesis. You are
expected to work to an approved programme of work including appropriate programmes
of postgraduate study (which may be drawn from parts of existing postgraduate courses,
final year degree programmes, conferences, guided reading or a combination of study
methods). The programme of research is assisted by these background and related
studies which can be especially important if you are a part-time/mature student who may
have been away from formal studying for some time.
Supervision
You will have a minimum of one main supervisor who will normally be part of a
supervisory team, comprising of up to three members. At least one member of the
supervisory team will have a successful track record of supervision at the appropriate
level, and at least one member of the supervisory team will be currently engaged in
research in the relevant discipline(s) so as to ensure that the direction and monitoring of
the student's progress is informed by up to date subject knowledge and research
developments. They will be supported by an enterprise adviser, normally based in the
University, although an external adviser may also be considered depending on individual
project requirements. The research supervisor(s) will work with the student to select
taught modules appropriate to their research project, and provide subject-specific
guidance; the enterprise advisor will provide advice on issues such as business or social
enterprise start-up, self-employment, or knowledge transfer.
Assessment
Examination for a Masters by Research is by thesis. The text of the thesis should not
normally exceed 25,000 words. Where the submission is accompanied by material in
other than written form or the research involves creative writing or the preparation of a
scholarly edition, the written commentary should normally be a minimum of 5,000 words.
(Source:http://www.hud.ac.uk/researchdegrees/typesofresearchdegrees/masters/masterofenterprise/, last
accessed 15/5/2014)
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Annex 2: Description of an exemplary credit-bearing course outside the Business
School
Enhancing employability: good practice in enterprise education
Name: Caroline Pringle
Role: Senior Lecturer Digital and Practical Journalism
Institution: University of Huddersfield
Activity/practice: what it is and why it is innovative and/or offers something
different;
Magazine Design and Production “analyses the diversity and complexity of the magazine
market and considers the nature of design and production. The economics, costs,
techniques, and organisation of design and production are examined and the nature of
the publishing industry investigated. The module also looks at the market for new
magazines, and investigates how editors and publishers identify and develop new
opportunities.”
This module, delivered to Journalism students (and offered to Business with Design
students), offers a holistic view of the Magazine industry and production process; it allows
students to see through a project from conception idea for a magazine, to the production
of a dummy copy, via market research, budgeting, design iteration and marketing. All of
this is then presented to a Dragon’s Den style panel of Industry professionals that the
staff group have built up over the years.
The delivery of the module is fairly traditional in the first term laying the ground work of
knowledge and learning, via lectures (including visiting practitioners), seminars and
practical design workshops.
In the second term students work in groups as a business team, taking on responsibility
for design, editorial, business and finance. They are provided with a production schedule
and all sign a contract agreement. We hold drop-in production workshops instead of
traditional classes, this is to encourage a production environment and encourage informal
peer collaboration and assessment.
These session runs throughout Friday afternoon and must include a production meeting
with a tutor. Production meetings include feedback and directed learning, adhering as
closely as possible to the production schedule. It also allows us, the tutors, to ensure
work is progressing at a good rate for completion.
While each student takes ultimate responsibility for an area of the project, the aim is that
they then delegate tasks to group members, ensuring all students tackle a range of tasks
and skill sets. This includes writing copy, market research, page design, sourcing and
contacting relevant advertisers and building a web/digital strategy.
The culmination of the project is a 12 page dummy copy of the magazine with
representative copy, design and advertising; a portfolio of evidence that this is a viable
magazine product, including market research, media pack, style guide and design
analysis, web strategy, basic balance sheet and basic business plan; this is all presented
to the panel of industry professionals and tutors.
The presentation is treated professionally and the panel ask challenging and pertinent
questions. While their role is not to mark students, they add a real world angle to this
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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assessment. Practitioners range from magazine and newspaper editors, to print and
digital media designers to online marketing strategists working in the publishing industry.
How students are engaged; students become very invested in this project, often
producing above and beyond what is expected.
The weekly meetings with tutors and the production schedule serve to break down a
large and potentially unwieldy project in to reasonable and achievable targets, these are
skills that are incredibly important in enterprise and in honours level modules and beyond.
The production afternoons provide a flexible frame work for students to work in and are
incredibly productive and positive working environments, ensuring that groups and
students remain motivated and engaged.
Outcomes and evidence of impact: General outcomes are that students can see the
whole process of production, putting the journalism writing and content production in
context. The project also encourages the embedding of skills from outside the module,
post pertinently at the moment web skills in implementing web strategies, and while this is
addressed in teaching, students regularly bring their own skills and knowledge to the
project.
Every year at least one of these projects will be taken further, into further education
based projects or on to actual publications, this year a group took elements of their
magazine idea and approached one of their advertisers with a magazine proposal, they
went on to produce two 30 page digital magazines for this external client as part of an
honours level module. The success of this has led to the client commissioning regular
publications.
The panel that attend as Dragon’s are regularly very impressed with the standard of work
this module produces and this has led to a range of work experience places, for final year
students, these include Press Association, Excelle Magazine and Barnsley Chronicle.
Magazine Design and Production
Intermediate Level
Core for: BA(Hons) Journalism
Optional on: BA(Hons) Music Journalism
BA(Hons) Sports Journalism
BA Hons Business with Design
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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Annex 3: Statistics about start-ups from the UoH
The UK’s Higher Education – Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey
shows data for start-ups from universities. In terms of the wider university provision, the
UoH’s HE-BCI data for graduate start-ups (up to two years from graduation) and three-
year survival rates are provided below. The UoH only counts a graduate start-up if it has
received dedicated start-up support, which means that the actual number may be higher.
The numbers nominally dropped in 2011 – 2012 due to a change in reporting
requirements that required universities to have evidence of business registration. Before
2010/2011, the UoH was ranked in the top ten or eleven of UK universities.
Destinations of leavers from higher education provide self-reported data on self-
employment and exploration of business start-up six months after graduation. The UoH
rates of self-employment and business start-up are above national average. A new DHLE
question was included in 2011/2012 onwards, asking how well prepared the graduates’
universities prepared them for self-employment and freelancing. 40% of 3,660 graduates
responded that the university prepared them “well” or “very well”.
Year
Survey / indicator
2008/
2009
2009/
2010
2010/
2011
2011/
2012
2012/
2013
HE-BCI
Number of graduate start-ups created 33 45 39 20 21
Number of graduate start-ups still active which have
survived at least three years
51 61 77 51 58
DHLE
Self-Employment 70 129 165 161 179
Business Start-Up 24 35
Well or very well prepared for self-employment /
freelancing
39% 40%
The DLHE data also shows that the vast majority of self-employed graduates remain in
the North of England six months after graduation. 66% are based in Yorkshire and the
Humber with the majority of these in West Yorkshire in which Huddersfield is located
(49% of all self-employed individuals). Only 3% are based in Greater London. A
proportion of these businesses are likely to have been supported by the Yorkshire and
Humber ERDF-funded Graduate Entrepreneurship Project that was specifically designed
to help graduates start-up and remain in the region.
The mean salary for self-employed graduates who provided information was £23,000 in
2011/2012 and £23,900 in 2012/2013. These numbers are comparable or higher with the
whole survey population that reported mean salaries of £23,300 and £21,800
respectively. Although a large number of self-employed individuals were not drawing a
salary six months after graduation, four reported that they provided themselves with a
salary of over £50,000 in each of the two years for which this data has been recorded.
The UoH’s Enterprise Team data showed that 52 students and graduates signed up for
business start-up support in 2012/2013, 37 of who were pre-trading and 15 trading. The
Enterprise Team dealt with 281 general enquiries, held 450 one-to-one business advice
meetings, and delivered 14 events with over 400 attendees in total. Over 80 students and
graduates are currently signed up for Enterprise Support and access to the Duke of York
Young Entrepreneur Centre.
doc_556435505.pdf
Within this brief description explores supporting the entrepreneurial potential of higher education university of huddersfield.
1
Case Study No. 5:
University of Huddersfield, United
Kingdom:
Entrepreneurship education across all
Schools and how to teach the teachers
May 2015
Author: Stefan Lilischkis
About the sepHE Study
The study "Supporting the entrepreneurial potential of higher education"
was based on a contract between the European Commission, Directorate
General Education and Culture (DG EAC), and empirica Gesellschaft für
Kommunikations- und Technologieforschung mbH (co-ordinator – Bonn,
Germany) as well as the University of Wuppertal, UNESCO Chair of
Entrepreneurship and Intercultural Management (Wuppertal, Germany).
The study’s main purpose was collecting 20 case studies about insightful
practice in entrepreneurship education at European universities. This is one
of them. The findings from a cross-case analysis are included in the Final
Report which is available at the study’s homepage and at DG EAC’s website.
Supporting the entrepreneurial
potential of higher education
http://www.sephHE.eu
[email protected]
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
2
5 University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom:
entrepreneurship education across all Schools
and how to teach the teachers
Overview of contents
5.1 The university’s entrepreneurial profile .................................................................................4
5.1.1 The university’s overall approach to entrepreneurship........................................................... 4
5.1.2 Leadership and governance .................................................................................................. 5
5.1.3 Resources: people and financial capacity .............................................................................. 7
5.2 Entrepreneurship in curricula and teaching ...........................................................................7
5.2.1 Overview of curricular offers and units providing them .......................................................... 7
5.2.2 Target groups ...................................................................................................................... 11
5.2.3 Designing lectures and courses – basic curricular decisions ............................................... 12
5.2.4 Setting of entrepreneurship teaching ................................................................................... 13
5.2.5 Instructors: teachers and mentors........................................................................................ 13
5.2.6 Management of entrepreneurship education ....................................................................... 15
5.3 Extra-curricular activities in entrepreneurship education .....................................................17
5.4 Institutional aspects of entrepreneurship education.............................................................20
5.4.1 Organisational set-up and change ....................................................................................... 20
5.4.2 Laws, statutes and codes .................................................................................................... 21
5.4.3 Mindsets and attitudes ......................................................................................................... 21
5.5 Outreach to external stakeholders of EE .............................................................................22
5.5.1 External stakeholders involved in entrepreneurship education ............................................ 22
5.5.2 International relationships .................................................................................................... 23
5.6 Impact and lessons learned ................................................................................................23
5.6.1 Evaluating impacts of entrepreneurship education .............................................................. 23
5.6.2 Lessons learned................................................................................................................... 24
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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Abstract
Entrepreneurship education (EE) at the University of Huddersfield (UoH) combines
strong profiles in curricula offers, extra-curricular activities and organisational set-
up. The UoH is one of a few UK universities to offer new venture creation degrees:
the UoH’s Business School offers bachelor, masters, and doctoral degrees
involving to start an enterprise. However, the most striking characteristic of EE at
the UoH may be that EE teaching is “everyone’s responsibility”. Embedded EE is
offered in all of the university’s seven academic Schools. The UoH’s strategy
provides that by 2018 each student is to encounter EE in his or her study. This
approach is enabled by a concept that does not only promote “entrepreneurship”
as starting a business but also, more generally, “enterprising” as making ideas
happen. The UoH also offers major extra-curricular EE activities, mainly through
the UoH’s Enterprise Team but also activities by teachers from various schools. As
regards organisational set-up of EE, there is strong support from the university’s
management. The Vice Chancellor put in place a supportive infrastructure with the
appointments of a Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and Enterprise, a Director of
Research and Enterprise, and a Head of Enterprise. The UoH’s Enterprise Team
unit is an important element in the UoH’s EE approach. The Enterprise Team helps
UoH students and graduates start their business and it encourages and supports
teachers especially from non-business Schools to teach entrepreneurship
themselves. Moreover, entrepreneurs and businesses contribute to the design of
the curriculum and help support students in many ways. While some EE activities
are co-funded by the national government and the EU, the UoH’s EE profile may
largely be due to leadership that other universities could emulate fairly easily.
Case study fact sheet
Full name of the university, town,
country
University of Huddersfield (UoH), Huddersfield (150,000 inhabitants;
10
th
largest town in UK), United Kingdom
Legal status Public
Campuses Queensgate, International Study Centre (on main campus)
Year of foundation: 1825 (Science and Mechanic Institute), formal name “University of
Huddersfield” since 1992.
Number of students (year): 20,435 (2012/2013) (Source: HESA 2014a)
Number of employees: 1,035 (academic); 1,480 (non-academic); 165 (academic atypical)
(Source: HESA 2014b)
Budget in most recent financial
year:
Income 2013: 142.5 million £ (approx. 174.5 million €) (According to
UoH Financial Statements 2013, p. 11)
Academic profile: Academic schools: Applied Sciences; Art, Design and Architecture;
Computing and Engineering; Education and Professional Development;
Business; Human and Health Sciences; Music, Humanities and Media.
Entrepreneurial University of the Year at Times Higher Education
(THE) awards 2012; University of the Year at the THE awards 2013.
Entrepreneurship education profile: Degree courses at the Business School embed entrepreneurship into
the curriculum; teaching EE is “everyone’s responsibility”; every
student shall encounter EE by 2018
Activities focused in this case
study:
Curricular offers and extra-curricular activities in EE across the
university and how the UoH “teaches the teachers” about EE
Case contact person(s): Gatekeeper: Kelly Smith, Head of Enterprise Team
Information included in this case study is from end of year 2014 unless stated differently.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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5.1 The university’s entrepreneurial profile
5.1.1 The university’s overall approach to entrepreneurship
Key characteristics of EE at the UoH
Entrepreneurship education (EE) at the University of Huddersfield (UoH) combines strong
profiles in curricula offers, extra-curricular activities and organisational set-up. As regards
curricular offers, EE is a key part of the UoH’s strategy. The university targets to ensure
that every student encounters EE at some point in his or her study by 2018. Notably, the
UoH defines EE not only in the common meaning as “entrepreneurship” and “venturing”,
i.e. starting a new business, but also more generally as “enterprising”, i.e. having an idea
and making it happen. Correspondingly, on the teachers’ side, a striking characteristic of
the UoH is that teaching about entrepreneurship and enterprising is “everyone’s
responsibility”. This case study pays special attention to this issue. It raises the ensuing
issue how the UoH ensures that those teaching about entrepreneurship are qualified to
do so, i.e. how the UoH “teaches the teachers”. The UoH pursues a diverse approach in
this respect. Thus, this case study presents a broader picture of what the UoH offers in
EE as well as a more specific view on how the UoH supports the offers.
Publicity of the UoH case
The University of Huddersfield received the Times Higher Education (THE) award for the
“Entrepreneurial University of the Year” in the UK for 2012. The UoH received the
award for its “entrepreneurial outlook championed at the highest levels of the institution”.
1
This included establishing an innovation centre, working with national entrepreneurship
bodies, regional leadership in fostering student and graduate business start-ups, an
excellent record in student employability and self-employment, and top national ranks in
various higher education indicators. As regards curricular EE, the UoH “was also
commended for the way in which degree courses embed entrepreneurship into the
curriculum and in particular for the BA in Enterprise Development”.
In 2013 the UoH was furthermore awarded the title “University of the Year”, also due to
its entrepreneurial profile. The UoH’s support for entrepreneurship education has been
included as a case study in three influential policy reports to UK Government (see Wilson
2012, Witty 2013, Young 2014). Already in 2009, the work by John Thompson, now
emeritus professor in entrepreneurship, was recognised by a Queen’s Award for
Enterprise Promotion. It also honoured setting up the UoH’s Business Mine, the precursor
to the Enterprise Team.
Due to these awards the case of EE at the UoH may be well-known in the UK. However,
the UoH apparently has not yet reached considerable international attention. The reason
may be that most of the UoH’s major entrepreneurial activities were launched since 2009
and are thus fairly recent.
1
Quoted fromhttp://www.hud.ac.uk/about/the-university/our-awards/the-entrepreneurial-award/.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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5.1.2 Leadership and governance
Importance of government strategies and policies
The UoH’s focus on entrepreneurship and EE is influenced by the importance which the
UK government attributes to EE. However, the UoH also influences national and regional
government strategies and programmes. For example, UoH’s Head of Enterprise Kelly
Smith is a co-author of the UK’s Quality Assurance Agency’s national guidelines for
enterprise and entrepreneurship education in higher education from 2012 (QAA 2012)
and a 2014 report for the UK Government’s All Party Parliamentary Group for
Microbusiness on an “education system fit for an entrepreneur” (Anderson et al. 2014).
Importance of entrepreneurship in the university’s strategy
Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education are core parts of the UoH’s strategy.
One of three aims of the UoH’s “Teaching and Learning Strategy 2013-2018” is “to
inspire employable and enterprising graduates”. The two other aims are “to inspire our
students to attain the highest academic and professional standards” and “to inspire our
students to enjoy an outstanding university experience”. “Enterprising Students” is the
second of six “enabling strands” supporting the delivery of the three overall aims. The
enterprising students strand contributes to all three.
Extent of high level commitment to implementing entrepreneurship
The theme of enterprise and entrepreneurship is promoted at the highest level by
UoH’s Vice-Chancellor,
2
Professor Bob Cryan, and through the Deans of Schools working
with the Research and Enterprise office. The teaching and learning strategy, which
includes the Enterprising Students strand described above, is led by Professor Tim
Thornton, Pro Vice Chancellor for Teaching and Learning. While the UoH always had a
practical, business-oriented and entrepreneurial flavour, entrepreneurship became an
explicit objective when Bob Cryan became Vice Chancellor in 2005. Since then “it has
been strengthened, strengthened and strengthened”, as Head of Enterprise Kelly Smith
said. She also said that the majority of staff were very proud of being awarded the title of
“Entrepreneurial University of the Year”. The UoH’s Annual Review 2012, the most recent
issue at the time of writing this case study, strongly emphasised the UoH’s mission to
support enterprise and entrepreneurship. There were however some “agnostics” (Kelly
Smith) and also some resistance. Tim Thornton said that “we need to explain the benefits
of enterprising and entrepreneurship for other parts of education and research” in order to
decrease such resistance.
Level of faculties’ and units’ autonomy to act
As Kelly Smith explained, the UoH’s academic schools are largely independent:
“Schools are responsible for the implementation of the University’s teaching and learning
strategy and will be required to do so, but they have a large amount of autonomy in how it
is done. They will be expected to produce School-level plans for delivery and report on
progress.” The strategy’s strand “Enterprise modules (...) to be provided at each level of
every course” implies that Schools must provide at least one enterprise-related module in
2
At the UoH as in the UK university system in general, the Vice Chancellor is the highest
executive position, while the Chancellor has a rather representative function.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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every year of every course. This may be about “being enterprising” but not necessarily in
terms of new venture creation – the Schools will be free to decide how. According to Kelly
Smith, “there is also encouragement to provide additional degrees and courses related to
enterprise and entrepreneurship, but no explicit pressure to do so and no requirement in
the teaching and learning strategy”.
Organisational implementation
The UoH’s approach to EE is largely decentralised. The UoH thus has a “radiant”
approach to entrepreneurship education. While the Business School offers three degrees
in entrepreneurship, it has only one Professor for entrepreneurship. It does not offer
entrepreneurship education at the other schools although it may provide support to non-
Business colleagues. Where enterprise or entrepreneurship is included in a course of
study, it will most likely be taught by teachers with a different core thematic expertise.
There are three ideas behind this approach. The first is credibility and cultural proximity:
non-business students may not accept being taught by business professors but they do
accept it from the professors in their school. Second, there is an issue of scale: A
decentralised approach may help enabling all students at the university have an
enterprise education experience at all levels of their course, as targeted by 2018 – this
could be difficult to be achieved with a centralised EE unit. A third advantage is that it
allows EE to be contextualised to the students’ subject of study – potentially industry-
specific rather than generic.
University’s importance for driving entrepreneurship in its environment
The UoH plays a vital role in regional entrepreneurship, manifested in a leading role in
the regional university co-operation “Graduate Entrepreneurship Project”, the 3M Buckley
Innovation Centre, and board memberships.
The UoH is the lead partner in the Graduate Entrepreneurship Project
3
(GE) funded
with £2.7 million from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). GE is a
collaboration of the ten Universities across Yorkshire and the Humber, one of England’s
nine official regions. ERDF funding ceased in November 2014 but the partners are
committed to continuing with non-funded collaborative activity.
The UoH also supports the region’s innovative small and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs) through the 3M Buckley Innovation Centre (3MBIC)
4
located on campus.
3MBIC was funded by the ERDF, Kirklees Council, 3M, and the UoH. It opened in 2012.
This centre provides state of the art facilities, facilitating partnerships between businesses
and with the university. 3MBIC houses start-ups, SMEs, and large corporations. The
Centre offers access to finance, markets and technology through a range of commercial,
technical and support services. Tenants and network members are encouraged to
establish close working relationships with the UoH’s staff.
5
The UoH’s Enterprise Team
unit is based in the Duke of York Young Entrepreneur Centre housed in the 3MBIC.
The UoH’s role in developing regional entrepreneurship also manifests itself in
memberships on regional boards.
6
3
Seehttp://graduateentrepreneurship.co.uk/.
4
Seehttp://www.3mbic.com.
5
Seehttp://www.3mbic.com/about/.
6
Vice Chancellor Bob Cryan: Leeds City Region LEP Board and its Business, Innovation and
Growth Panel; Pro Vice Chancellor Tim Thornton: Employment and Skills Panel; Enterprise
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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5.1.3 Resources: people and financial capacity
Human resources for entrepreneurship education
The UoH seeks to involve university teachers from all UoH Schools into EE. The UoH has
also an entrepreneur in residence and it involves entrepreneurs in EE. For example, 3M
New Ventures President Stefan Gabriel is Visiting Professor of Innovation, and Theo
Paphitis, owner of three UK retail chains, champions the BA Enterprise Development
degree and has given Master classes to enterprising students and graduates.
Financial resources for entrepreneurship education
The UoH funds its EE offers and extra-curricular activities through several public and
private sources. For curricular-based activity, as enterprise teaching and learning will be
embedded as a core part of every course by 2018, sustainability is built in. Enterprise
Team staff in the university’s student and graduate business start-up unit, who deliver the
Enterprise Placement Year and provide extra-curricular start-up support, are funded
through the UK’s Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF). HEIF also provides small
micro-finance grants. The UoH recently became a “Santander University”, joining an
alliance with the Santander bank which comes with some funds to support business start-
up as well as engagement with a national business planning competition. Some start-up
support activity and micro-finance grants were funded through the European Research
and Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the Graduate Entrepreneurship Project. The
UoH is currently looking for funding to supplement HEIF.
Moreover the UoH gained funds to promote social enterprise from the Higher Education
Funding Council for England (HEFCE). This funding finished in August 2013, but the UoH
set up a social enterprise consultancy unit as a result where some of the income
generated will be used to sustain micro-finance grants for social enterprise.
5.2 Entrepreneurship in curricula and teaching
5.2.1 Overview of curricular offers and units providing them
Curricular EE offers at the UoH
The UoH has curricular EE offers in all schools. Using the terminology of the National
Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education, the UoH offers three types of curricular
offers, by decreasing level of formalisation and contents: (1) full awards or qualifications
in enterprise and entrepreneurship, (2) credit bearing enterprise and entrepreneurship
modules, (3) embedded modules with enterprise and entrepreneurship. Furthermore, a
placement opportunity, the Enterprise Placement Year, supports students as they set
up their own business instead of working in employment. Exhibit 1-2 shows an overview
about some of the most prominent curricular offers in entrepreneurship education at the
UoH.
Team Leader Kelly Smith: Enterprise Education Group; Liz Towns-Andrews: Kirklees
Employability and Skills Board and Deputy Chair of the Yorkshire Universities' Knowledge
Transfer (KT) Directors' Network.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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Exhibit 5-1: Overview about prominent curricular EE offers at the University of Huddersfield
No. Name, degree Objectives Target groups Offered
since
[year]
No. of
participants
in [year]
(1) Degree offers Business School
1 BA Enterprise
Development
“Designed to help young
entrepreneurs start and run their
own business whilst studying for
a degree”. Three-years full time.
“Students of any age”
(Course description)
2009/2010 20 places
available
(2014/15: six
seeking the
degree)
2 BA
Entrepreneurship
and Business
Substantial elements of
enterprise education; no
expectation of actual business
start-up
Students whose
“ambition is to succeed
as an entrepreneur and
to develop and
progress [their] ideas in
the marketplace”
(course description)
2005/2006 30 places
available
(2014/15: 24
seeking the
degree)
3 Masters of
Enterprise (MEnt)
“The emphasis is on enterprise
creation and personal
entrepreneurial development
within the chosen area, rather
than on the study of business
organisations.” One year full time
or two years part time “research
degree with little or no taught
component”.
Students “wishing to
explore a potential
business or social
enterprise idea, either
to start-up their own
business or for a new
venture within public- or
private-sector
organisations” (course
description)
2010/2011 10/2014:
three current
students
4 Doctor of
Enterprise
Same as for MEnt “students whose
emphasis is on the
need for research to
underpin a new
business, social
enterprise, or
innovative service idea”
(Course description)
2010/2011 10/2014:
seven current
students
(2) Credit modules
(exemplary)
School of Music, Humanities
and Media
Magazine Design
and Production
Increasing (self-)employment
opportunities through practical
learning how to launch a new
magazine
BA(Hons) Journalism
BA(Hons) Music
Journalism
BA(Hons) Sports
Journalism
BA Hons Business with
Design
n.a. n.a.
Other offers
Enterprise
Placement Year
Supporting students in preparing
to start an own business
All students 2004 20
Games-Industry
Enterprise
Placement Year
Supporting students in preparing
to start their own games business
Students in the School
of Computing and
Engineering
2014 10
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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Curricular EE offers at the Business School
The UoH’s Business School has around 6,000 full-time, part-time and distance learning
students. This means that almost one third of the UoH’s students are at the Business
School. It has five departments: Accountancy, Leadership and Management, Logistics
and Hospitality Management, Strategy and Marketing, Law School.
The most prominent EE offers are full awards. The UoH’s Business School offers “three
programmes of study which explicitly provide opportunities for students to start-up their
own business or social enterprise, or to develop a new service innovation”.
7
These three
programmes cover all three levels of higher education: bachelor, master and doctor.
There is a Bachelor of Arts in Enterprise Development, a Master of Enterprise (MEnt),
and a Doctor of Enterprise (Ent D). Furthermore there is a BA in Entrepreneurship and
Business. The BA in Entrepreneurship and Business will include substantial elements of
enterprise education, but there is no expectation of actual business start-up. The MEnt
and EntD are also offered by other academic Schools, too, as they are research degrees.
Students will register with the academic school that best meets their research
requirements.
Beside the full awards there are other entrepreneurship-related offers at the Business
School. In Transport and Logistics, enterprise is taught through financial, commercial and
marketing modules. Within the Business Management course they have specific
modules, such as personal development, business enterprise and an employment
module, which are more explicitly enterprise modules. Events Management students at
the Business School design and deliver real events linked to the Prince’s Trust Million
Makers competition.
Curricular EE offers outside the business school
In 2010 and 2012, the UoH’s academic schools were required to self-report their EE
modules according to the descriptions of the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in
Education (NCEE). The UoH’s Teaching and Learning Institute carried out a baseline
audit of course descriptors in 2013 so that the UoH can look at the future impact of its
Enterprising Students strategy theme. They found that the “enterprising modules” strand
of the UoH’s strategy “produced many responses, despite the number of courses not
having definitive modules in enterprise”. Experience suggests that enterprise activity in
the modules is not always made explicit. The following lists some exemplary offers:
The Drama degree programme at the School of Music, Humanities and Media does
not have an enterprising module as such, but the teachers in charge encourage
students to do free-lance work. They also have a student theatre company which
gives the students the mechanics on how a theatre would work and how to budget.
Music Technology and Audio Systems, also at the School of Music, Humanities
and Media, has an enterprising module named “Business in the Music Industry” in
the final year, where students learn how to draw up contracts and manage
businesses within the music industry.
7
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/research/developmentarea/enterprise/enterpriseinthecurriculum/enterprise
degrees/.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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In Architecture at the School of Art, Design and Architecture, students have to
draw up contracts in respect to buildings, and planning permission, providing
students with the tools they need to start a business after their academic study.
Computer Games Design students from the School of Computing and Engineering
can apply for a sandwich placement where they run their own games studio for
programme accreditation, Canal Side Studios.
At the same school there is a project
tasking students to publish a game for a mobile device, which has enterprising
aspects such as personal marketing skills, in which they develop simultaneously to
differentiate their product from others.
Exemplary curricular offers
The following box text describes an EE offer in more detail: “Magazine Design and
Production”, offered at the School of Music, Humanities and Media. This offer was
selected for this case study because it is long-established and successful.
Magazine Design and Production (School of Music, Humanities and Media)
The UoH’s School of Music, Humanities and Media runs a module “Magazine Design and
Production”. It “analyses the diversity and complexity of the magazine market and
considers the nature of design and production. The economics, costs, techniques, and
organisation of design and production are examined and the nature of the publishing
industry investigated.” The module is core for general Journalism students and offered as
an elective to students of Music Journalism, Sports Journalism, and Business with
Design. Caroline Pringle, Senior Lecturer Digital and Practical Journalism, runs the
module. According to the UoH, “the module offers a holistic view of the magazine industry
and production process; it allows students to see through a project from conception idea
for a magazine, to the production of a dummy copy, via market research, budgeting,
design iteration and marketing. All of this is then presented to a Dragon’s Den style panel
of Industry professionals that the staff group have built up over the years.” In the first
term, the delivery of the module is fairly traditional via lectures – also including visiting
practitioners – as well as seminars and practical design workshops. In the second term
students work in groups as a business team, taking on responsibility for design, editorial,
business and finance. The project culminates in a twelve-page dummy copy of a
magazine with representative copy, design and advertising as well as evidence of market
viability, marketing strategy, basic balance sheet and basic business plan. The UoH
considers this module as a good practice in enterprise education and enhancing
employability.
Source: University of Huddersfield, description sheet for the module “Magazine Design and
Production”. For a more elaborate description see the annex of this case study.
Enterprise Placement Year (all Schools)
The Enterprise Placement Year is a year-long accredited module of study. Students
explore self-employment instead of working in a company as they would in a traditional
placement. By the time of writing this case study it was already available to the majority of
students, although spaces were limited. Schools were being encouraged to create their
own enterprise or innovation-related placement years in addition to the generic EPY. An
example was a game-industry enterprise placement year launched in 2014 by the School
of Computing and Engineering with ten students looking to start-up three games
businesses. Source: Kelly Smith, UoH Enterprise Team, 2014
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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5.2.2 Target groups
Main target groups of entrepreneurship education
The UoH targets all students to learn about enterprising and entrepreneurship. Statistics
show that this objective is currently only partly fulfilled. The bi-annual mapping survey for
2012 of the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education (NCEE) shows that in
2012, the total number of offers and students participating differed largely between
the schools. It was by far the largest in the School of Art, Design and Architecture (ADA)
which offered 71 embedded modules and 4 credit modules. The ADA School also
counted the largest number of students involved: 2229 for embedded modules and 222
for credit modules (per module, so double counting may occur). The reason is that most
ADA graduates start their own business sooner or later. The Business School had 17
modules and 775 students, followed by the Schools of Music, Humanities and Media (8
modules, 503 students), Applied Sciences (6 modules, 249 students) and Computing and
Engineering (4 modules, 230 students). At two schools there was not much EE activity:
The School of Educational and Professional Development (3 modules, 82 students), and
the School of Human and Health Sciences (3 modules, 54 students). The typical
graduate’s career in these schools was to work for public services or charities. However,
interviewees mentioned increasing interest for example in social entrepreneurship from
this school.
In the 2013 audit by the UoH’s Teaching and Learning Institute, the challenge in the
UoH’s strategy strand about enterprise modules became evident in those courses
where enterprising modules were not yet embedded because course teams perceive their
course as being one which does not particularly need enterprising aspects. This applied
for example to Youth and Community Work, Criminology, Health & Nutrition, Photography
and Childhood Studies. All these courses do, however, have guest speakers from their
discipline and placement students sharing their experience with second-year students. An
audit of academic School’s performance in 2014 showed that the majority of Schools
either complied or were close to complying with the strategy requirement of an enterprise
module against QAA guidelines.
Continuous education
The UoH offers some continuous education in EE, i.e. education for people who already
left university and were employed elsewhere. However, the UoH does not put particular
weight on such offers. The UoH offers support to its graduates up to five years from
graduation through its Enterprise Skills series and Enterprise Support. These offers are
not accredited. The Business School can offer bespoke short courses, and UoH’s
Master’s level courses across all subject areas may include enterprise learning
opportunities.
Bridges to secondary education
The UoH also builds bridges to EE in secondary school education. The UoH was
founding partner in a regional business competition for 16-19 year olds named “Umph!”.
Various academic schools run “Dragon’s Den” style competitions for secondary schools
they are looking to recruit from. The UoH’s Events Management lecturers created a
competition for schools called “EVENTerprise”. The UoH has strong links with the
Kirklees Creative and Media Studio School and the Kirklees College Peter Jones
Enterprise Academy. The UoH also partners in an initiative for young people – not only
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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from secondary schools – in digital entrepreneurship named “iDEA - the inspiring Digital
Enterprise Award”.
5.2.3 Designing lectures and courses – basic curricular decisions
Objectives of entrepreneurship teaching
The UoH’s “Teaching and Learning Strategy 2013-2018” formulates three overall aims
which thus also applied to EE: “To inspire our students to attain the highest academic and
professional standards”, “to inspire our students to enjoy an outstanding university
experience”, and “to inspire employable and enterprising graduates”. Within the six
“enabling strands”, Strand 2 about “enterprising students” had the following four specific
objectives:
TB1. Tightening of definition of “work-related activity”, present in all courses, to include
significant “live” project & problem-solving elements.
TB2. Enterprise modules (against QAA enterprise learning outcomes, see QAA 2012) at
each level of every course.
TB3. Volunteering opportunities developed.
TB4. Enterprise / innovation placement year and enterprise final-year module to be
available to all students (subject to PSRB limitations).
Contents of entrepreneurship teaching
In its EE teaching, the UoH distinguishes between enterprise education (“having an idea
and making it happen”) from entrepreneurship education (“new venture creation”).
“Enterprise education” has a broader meaning of realising innovations, not necessarily
involving to start a business. The UoH provides both types, depending on student and
subject need. The Enterprise Team does not even promote using the term “entrepreneur”
but prefers terms like “business owner, “freelancer”, and “self-employed”. “Entrepreneur”
may be used in programmes where the lead academic deems it to be appropriate, for
example in the BA Enterprise Development degree.
The content of entrepreneurship teaching at the UoH differs according to the types of
courses and the aspirations of the target groups. EE at the UoH “needs to be context-
related”, said Pro-Vice Chancellor for Teaching and Learning, Tim Thornton, and other
interviewees. The degree courses at the Business School offer the full range of business
subjects needed to launch an enterprise on one’s own. All courses and modules across
the university include, or are planned to include by 2018, practical insights needed to
become enterprising or entrepreneurial. They are meant to motivate students to actually
do so, supporting their career, which may be as an entrepreneur, self-employed or as an
– enterprising thinking – employee. Entrepreneurship-related modules at non-business
schools make the students familiar with business issues related to their School’s area of
subjects, familiarising the students with things they need to know and be able to do in
case of actually launching a business. Enterprise or entrepreneurship education can be
presented as stand-alone modules, or embedded where Schools provide information that
familiarises the students with the opportunities of behaving entrepreneurial in specific
fields whilst studying their chosen subject.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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Methods and media
The UoH provides a wide range of methods and media in EE. Methods include, but are
not limited to, lectures and tutorials by staff or by guest speakers as well as case study
workshops. A method to which the UoH attributes specific importance is enterprise
placement for practical learning, live work-based elements and project work. Media
include for example videos about business practice, and business simulation software.
Similar to content, the range of methods and media applied differs by the types of
courses.
The UoH also runs a strategic project related to software for facilitating enterprising and
entrepreneurship. Supported by the University’s Teaching and Learning Institute, the UoH
was in 2014 exploring how the business simulation game SimVenture could be rolled
out across campus and used as a tool for embedding enterprise education in subjects as
diverse as business, fashion and psychology. SimVenture is commercial software that
was launched in 2006 and, according to the supplier in 2014, was used in more than 150
universities all over the world as well as in schools and in communities.
Informal evaluation of learning outcomes and feedback for students
Informal feedback to students about learning outcomes in EE, i.e. feedback regardless of
formal marks and credits, differs by the teachers concerned. Generally the UoH
encourages such informal feedback in order to reach the university’s overall aims, i.e. to
inspire graduates for attaining the highest academic and professional standards, enjoying
an outstanding university experience, and becoming employable and enterprising. The
UoH’s Enterprise Team also provides such informal evaluation and feedback.
Using results of entrepreneurship research
UoH researchers frequently carry out empirical studies about entrepreneurship and EE at
the own university and publish results in journal articles and conference papers (e.g.
Smith at al. 2013). The UoH also seeks to implement the lessons learned from
entrepreneurship research into teaching. UoH teachers share practice through best
practice sessions organised with bodies such as Enterprise Educators UK (EEUK),
Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE), VITAE (a national organisation
for postgraduate research students and early stage researchers), and through
presentations at relevant national and international conferences.
5.2.4 Setting of entrepreneurship teaching
EE at the UoH does take place in the university’s lecture halls and classrooms, but may
be more likely to be found in studios, workshops, and laboratories, and also in
businesses through long- and short-term placement opportunities. Occasionally there are
also excursions to enterprises in the region and other locations outside the university.
Such change of scene is supposed to enhance learning experiences and increase
learning motivation.
5.2.5 Instructors: teachers and mentors
Professors, other employees and external lecturers of the university
Teaching staff are primarily academics in their subject-specific area although many
modules include guest speakers from industry. The UoH has only a few teachers who
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
14
deal exclusively with entrepreneurship. At the end of 2014, the Business School’s staff list
named eleven professors, among them one explicitly for “entrepreneurship”, Gerard
McElwee.
8
There is also an emeritus professor in entrepreneurship, John Thompson.
Kelly Smith explained that at the UoH teaching enterprise and entrepreneurship is
“everyone’s responsibility”. Most teachers who impart EE at the UoH have another
specialty and teach enterprising and entrepreneurship on the basis of additionally
acquired knowledge and experience. This is part of the UoH’s specific approach to EE.
However, there is no compulsory requirement for UoH teachers to teach about
enterprising and entrepreneurship. So the UoH does not see a need to make teaching the
teachers obligatory. One of the interviewees from the Department of Informatics said that
one cannot compel teachers to teach entrepreneurship. Rather, there need to be
ambassadors for such teaching within the departments.
In 2012/2013, the UoH introduced a new promotion route for enterprise activity: the title of
“Principle Enterprise Fellow”, equivalent to “Reader” and “Principal Teaching Fellow”.
“Real entrepreneurs” as teachers
All UoH programmes of study are required to have industry or professional input into the
approval process. In many instances this will involve small business and entrepreneurs.
For example, the School of Art, Design and Architecture regularly benefits from co-
operation with industrial designers.
9
The University has an Entrepreneur in Residence – Professor Graham Leslie
10
– based
at the 3M Buckley Innovation Centre (3MBIC).
The University is also working with two Visiting Professors from the Royal Academy of
Engineering: President of 3M New Ventures Stefan Gabriel
11
and Jonathan Sands, the
CEO of leading brand agency Elmwood. They explore and deliver enterprise and
entrepreneurship education opportunities. More recently, Alan Lewis, one of the UK’s top
businessmen, was appointed Visiting Professor in Entrepreneurship.
The UoH has a Royal Society Lifetime Industry Fellow, and collaborative research
fellows linked to strategic partnerships with industry.
Mentors
The UoH’s Business School has an Advisory Panel with entrepreneurial representation.
12
It also has schemes with partners in law and accountancy which provide students with
networking, mentoring and training opportunities via internationally renowned legal and
accountancy firms.
13
8
Last accessed June 2014.
9
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/research/researchcentres/circ/externalrelationships/.
10
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/business/visitingprofessors/grahamleslie/.
11
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/news/allstories/3mpresidentbecomesvisitingprofessor.php.
12
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/uhbs/businessschool-about/advisoryboard/.
13
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/uhbs/businessschool-about/partnersinlaw/.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
15
5.2.6 Management of entrepreneurship education
Teacher and trainer management
“Teaching the teachers” is a particularly important issue at the UoH because the
teachers at the different schools teach about enterprise and entrepreneurship issues
while their main expertise is in a different academic discipline. The UoH has a multiple
approach to teaching the teachers, consisting of internal and external elements:
(1) Internal information: The Enterprise Team aims to be present at all relevant
networking events at the UoH in order to talk with teachers about EE and offers to
support related teaching. The Enterprise Team has built up a network of EE
“ambassadors” across all schools who help spread information about EE and the
Enterprise Team.
(2) Internal consulting on demand: On demand, the members of the UoH’s Enterprise
Team consult teachers – individually and in groups – about how to teach enterprising
and entrepreneurship. Such inquiries reach the Enterprise Team about once a week.
Head of Enterprise Kelly Smith said she has “a suite of presentations and workshops
that I run as required by academic schools”.
If teachers need industry-specific
information, the Enterprise Team can help retrieve it by tapping into a licensed
business reference resource. In some cases the UoH’s Teaching and Learning
Institute (TALI) helps.
(3) Internal workshops for open audience: The UoH also offers workshops for an
open audience. In January 2014 TALI held a half-day workshop called “Enterprise
Matters” which is planned to become a separate annual event.
14
(4) External training: The UoH is member of EEUK, the UK’s national network for
enterprise educators which has the objective “to support our members to increase the
scale, scope and effectiveness of enterprise and entrepreneurship teaching within
their institutions” (http://www.enterprise.ac.uk/). Some members of UoH staff
attended Best Practice Workshops.
(5) Internal and external conference participation: EEUK also offers an annual
International Entrepreneurship Education Conference. On site, enterprise regularly
features within the UoH’s annual Teaching and Learning Conference. The 2010
conference had enterprise explicitly in the title.
15
The Enterprise Team’s approach is to encourage and to empower teachers to teach EE
themselves. This has several reasons: The Enterprise Team is small and cannot deliver
many lectures across the university; it increases respect for the teacher among students
if he or she teaches EE him- or herself; and students are more willing to take up
knowledge from a teacher with the right pedigree. Thus, individual consulting of teachers
about EE often takes the form of encouragement to use and build upon own existing
expertise. Kelly Smith said that oftentimes teachers have more entrepreneurial expertise
than they are aware of, for example from working as freelancers or from working as
“enterprising” employees in specific industries.
As EE teaching is voluntary and as the UoH is a large institution, one could assume a
communication challenge to make the offers for teaching the teachers known among
14
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/tali/projects/sp_enterprise/ent_matters/.
15
See proceedings athttp://www.hud.ac.uk/tali/prof_dev/tl_conf/.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
16
teaching staff. Due to the “Entrepreneurial University of the Year” award in 2012 and the
related promotion, every UoH teacher should either know about the existence of the
Enterprise Team or know someone who can direct to this team. Furthermore, the
Enterprise Team communicates their offers through the UoH’s central marketing team.
Research for this case study suggests that this scope of teaching the teachers ensures a
sufficiently high quality of EE teaching at the UoH. As the lecturer from the School of
Music, Humanities and Media who runs the “Magazine Design and Production” module
said: “We don’t have the strict business knowledge, but it’s not necessary, what we have
is industry expertise.” In this module, if specific expertise is needed which the teacher
cannot provide, they invite guest speakers, often alumni, for example in the panel for
magazine assessment.
Managing student support
The UoH has a unit dedicated to managing student support in the field of
entrepreneurship, the Enterprise Team headed by Kelly Smith. The Enterprise Team is
there, according to its homepage, “to support you right from the beginning to help you
grow your seed of an idea into a successful business”. The Enterprise Team offers
support not only to current students but also to those who graduated within the past five
years. It offers “one to one business advice and coaching” as well as hot desk facilities in
the Duke of York Young Entrepreneur Centre with free access to computer, printer,
telephone and meeting rooms. Students may also apply for a Proof of Concept Grant of
up to £500. Support may be continuous; the Enterprise Team invites to “periodic updates
to review your progress”
16
. The Enterprise Team also offers a free events series providing
an introduction to various aspects of business and self-employment. Sessions include
advice on writing a business plan, researching the market, branding a product and
developing essential networking skills.
17
The status of being a Santander University (see
section 1.1.3 above, financial resources) helps the UoH provide additional proof of
concept and business start-up grants, and enables participation in national Santander
pitching and business planning competitions for students and recent graduates.
Internal and external network management
The UoH offers regular opportunities to discuss and share opinions and experiences
about EE. Enterprise education often emerges naturally in other teaching and learning
and support services events, too. Entrepreneurs, who may be alumni, are often invited
back for guest lectures through academic schools and staff contacts. Alumni of the
Enterprise Team’s student and graduate entrepreneurship support regularly return to
speak to the next generation of supported students and the UoH can link them into
academic schools too as required.
Management of curricular integration and attracting new groups of students
The UoH manages the integration of enterprise and entrepreneurship modules into
curricula through its defined overall aims, its strategy and, operationally, through the
Enterprise Team. In this way all students will deal with enterprise or venturing at some
point of every course.
16
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/enterprise/enterprisesupport.
17
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/enterprise/enterpriseawareness/.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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Evaluation of courses and programmes
Each School at the UoH is required to respond to the teaching and learning strategy with
plans to the University’s Teaching and Learning Committee for approval – this will include
explicit reference to enterprising students. Also, in 2014, the annual evaluation of
teaching and learning included the following question: “How are enterprising skills being
defined and developed in student work?” Individual module evaluations will differ and
enterprise activities may or may not be explicitly covered. The UoH encourages academic
staff to evaluate this however, and can support them to publish or present at conferences.
5.3 Extra-curricular activities in entrepreneurship education
Overview about extra-curricular EE activities at the UoH
The UoH offers numerous extra-curricular EE activities which are however not focused in
this study. Some are directly dealing with entrepreneurship or enterprise, others just
include it among other themes. Activities directly related to EE include, above all, the
Enterprise Team’s activities: business skills workshops, general enterprise support, the
SimVenture business simulation game, Collabhub and Huddersfield Enterprise Society
meetings and social media platforms. On a regional level, the Graduate Entrepreneurship
project is directly about EE. Activities dealing with EE among other themes include an
annual teaching and learning conference that also deals with being enterprising.
Exhibit 5-2: Overview about extra-curricular EE activities at the University of Huddersfield
No. Name Objectives Target group Offered
since
[year]
No. of
participants
in [year]
Direct relation to EE
1 Business skills
workshops
Raising awareness for
enterprise and
entrepreneurship
UoH students and
graduates
2007 25 – 50 per
workshop
(2014)
2 Start-up support Up to one year start-up
support (finance, office
space in Duke of York
Young Entrepreneurs
Centre)
UoH students and
graduates
2006 ? 100 (2014)
3 Graduate
Entrepreneurship
Project
Promote entrepreneurship,
advise about it, and facilitate
access to start-up resources
Students and
graduates in
Yorkshire and
Humber Region
2009
(Transferred
to UoH as
Lead
Partner)
? 8,800 (2010
– 2014)
4 Honeypot Software and event to pitch
start-up ideas and assemble
teams
UoH students 2013
880
5 Innovation and Creative
Exchange (ICE)
Lectures, workshops,
networking events and skill
exchanges aiming to bring
the best of innovative design
and industry thinking into the
undergraduate curriculum
Engineering and
design students
2013 (2013 – 2014,
Honeypot and
ICE together)
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
18
Indirect relation to EE
7 Annual conference
“Teaching and
Learning”
Enterprise and
entrepreneurship featured in
some way.
Academic teaching
professionals
2006 ?180
8 SimVenture business
simulation game
Tool for embedding
enterprise education in
different university subjects.
To be defined 2014 ? 20
9 Collabhub Pitching ideas for
enterprising projects and find
collaborators
All UoH students,
also UoH staff and
community
members
2013 > 50 (2014)
Start-up support from the UoH’s Enterprise Team
The UoH’s Enterprise Team supports around 100 individuals in around 80 pre-start
companies a year, of which at least 35 will convert into sustainable business start-ups.
Support is provided in two tiers:
1. Enterprise Awareness: Primarily a series of 15 to 20 business skills workshops a
year with each attracting 25 to 50 attendees.
2. Enterprise Support: Up to a year’s free pre-start and early stage start-up support
including access to business advisors, hot desk office space in the UoH’s Duke of
York Young Entrepreneurs Centre which is part of the 3M Buckley Innovation
Centre, micro grants for proof of concept, and other services for students and recent
graduates up to five years from graduation.
There also used to be an activity named Activ8 Your Business, an intensive six-month
support scheme with a start-up grant for recent graduates and new venture creation
degree students. It ended in August 2013 due to the immanent closure of the ERDF
programme that funded it.
Collabhub: a new type of enterprise society
Until very recently, the University did not have a traditionally recognised “enterprise
society”. Huddersfield Enterprise Society was founded in December 2014 and launched
in January 2015. However, a new type of enterprise society was seeded in 2013 by a
senior lecturer in Music Technology, Elizabeth Dobson, and is generating much attention,
internally and externally:
18
Collabhub – Innovation Through Collaboration. Collabhub
encourages students from all disciplines to pitch ideas for enterprising projects and find
collaborators – including staff and members of the local community – through Facebook
or face-to-face events. Collabhub is an example of an initiative that is rather
unintentionally “entrepreneurial”, as Elizabeth Dobson said: “Initially I had no 'affinity' with
the terms enterprising or entrepreneurship. I recognise that CollabHub is enterprising,
and how incredibly enterprising our students are by way of this 'platform'.”
Honeypot: using software to assemble start-up teams
Honeypot stands for Huddersfield Open Network for Enterprise Creativity, Prototype
Design and Test. It provides special software that enables UoH students to pitch their
ideas and then assemble teams of fellow students who between them have the requisite
18
See also Dobson (2015).
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
19
set of skills. Honeypot is interdisciplinary, it targets students from arts and computing: 500
second-year students from selected courses within the UoH’s School of Art, Design and
Architecture and School of Computing and Engineering are eligible to register. There are
prizes to win: The idea that in the end scoops the most votes wins a set of vouchers.
Some projects may also receive funding for proof-of-concept. Stefan Gabriel, President of
3M New Ventures mentors the project.
19
Honeypot is financially backed by the Royal
Academy for Engineering. While Honeypot is currently extra-curricular, additional
curriculum-based elements are planned.
Start-up events
The UoH offers several rather traditional events to support start-ups and entrepreneurial
behaviour. Innovation and Creative Exchange (ICE) is a series of lectures, workshops,
networking events and skill exchanges – and also a more untraditional “24 hour design
challenge”. It aims to bring “innovative design and industry thinking into the
undergraduate curriculum” and to embed “innovation and design methodologies into the
curriculum for engineering and design students”.
20
Like Honeypot, ICE is financially
backed by the Royal Academy for Engineering.
Among the extra-curricular activities that include EE among other themes is an annual
“Teaching and Learning” conference where enterprise and entrepreneurship
education has featured in some way every year for at least since 2010. For example, the
theme of the 2010 conference was “Connections between Teaching and Learning and
Research and Enterprise”.
Graduate Entrepreneurship Project: regional universities support start-ups
On a regional level, the Graduate Entrepreneurship Project (GE) partners all ten higher
education institutions in Yorkshire and the Humber to provide start-up support to students
and graduates. The UoH has been the lead partner since 2009. The project enables each
institution to provide a wide range of enterprise support in terms of guidance, finance or
networking with like-minded individuals. According to GE’s website, the project is “widely
recognised as an exemplar of best practice in enterprise education in the UK and EU”.
21
Specifically, it offers business start-up advice, proof-of-concept funding up to £1,000,
start-up grants up to £2,500, an annual four-day residential boot camp, and an annual
awards scheme. GE attracted £1.3 million of investment from the European Regional
Development Fund (EDRF) as part of Europe’s support for local economic development
through the Yorkshire and Humber ERDF Programme 2007–13. Between September
2010 and March 2014, the project worked with over 2,600 student and graduates looking
to start-up, with over 8,800 attendees to start-up events.
Managing extra-curricular activities
Research findings for this case study suggest that managers of extra-curricular activities
may not necessarily need any instructions or training in order to “instruct” about
19
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/schools/artdesignandarchitecture/enterpriseandengagement/studentprojec
ts/studentname,92591,en.php.
20
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/schools/artdesignandarchitecture/enterpriseandengagement/studentprojec
ts/studentname,92590,en.php.
21
Quoted fromhttp://graduateentrepreneurship.co.uk/about/.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
20
enterprise and entrepreneurship. Motivating may be more important, as Elizabeth
Dobson, initiator of the Collabhub initiative, said: “I'm not sure what 'entrepreneurial skills'
are, but Kelly [Head of the Enterprise Team] identified and supported the work that I was
doing. By celebrating and encouraging it she gave me confidence to continue and believe
that it was making positive changes. (...) I probably wouldn't have time to attend any talks
or events, the seed comes from my own idea supported by the enterprise team. This, for
me, is enough.”
As regards the issue of curricular integration, research for this case study found no
tendency to move extra-curricular activities to curricular offers. Students were found to be
highly motivated to spend time on extra-curricular activities when it is rewarding for
themselves, their study and their career.
5.4 Institutional aspects of entrepreneurship education
5.4.1 Organisational set-up and change
Measures for coordinating and integrating EE across the university
Following his appointment as Vice Chancellor in 2007, Bob Cryan placed a strong
emphasis on enterprise. He put in place a supportive infrastructure with the appointments
of a Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and Enterprise, a Director of Research and
Enterprise, and a Head of Enterprise responsible for student and graduate enterprise and
business start-up. For EE in curricula the Pro-Vice Chancellor for Teaching and Learning
is in charge. The Vice-Chancellor's Office is responsible for the co-ordination and
integration of university business, providing advice and support to the Vice-Chancellor on
strategic, policy and management matters. The Vice-Chancellor’s Office works closely
with Directors from across the University. The Directors play an important role in advising
the Vice-Chancellor on the management of the University in pursuing its vision, aims and
objectives. The School’s Deans are also actively engaged.
Kelly Smith pointed out that the Teaching and Learning Strategy 2013 – 2018 strand for
“Enterprising Students” and the events and projects put in place by the university’s
Schools to facilitate the strand’s delivery, demonstrate how the UoH combines top-down
strategy and bottom-up staff experience into organisational change.
The university has an Enterprise Team unit that helps students and graduates actively
explore self-employment and business through pre-start and early-stage trading activities.
The enterprise team also plays an important role in supporting teachers from the various
Schools of the UoH to developing their ability to teach about enterprise and
entrepreneurship. At the end of 2014, the Enterprise Team had four core employees: the
Head of Enterprise (Kelly Smith) as well as two business advisors and an office
administrator.
Influence of external stakeholders in the EE programmes
Several external stakeholders have been facilitating the UoH’s organisational change
towards putting enterprise and entrepreneurship at the core of the university’s strategy.
These include for example the Duke of York, Stefan Gabriel from 3M, and business
leader Theo Paphitis.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
21
5.4.2 Laws, statutes and codes
Incentives for staff to engage in or support entrepreneurship education
As regards incentives for staff to engage in or support EE, Kelly Smith explained that the
UoH’s academic schools and the staff in them work towards delivery of the teaching and
learning strategy. Other than this there are no incentives as such – it is just a normal part
of what the UoH’s teaching staff does. There are however, progression routes for
enterprising staff. For example, the UoH has Principal Enterprise Fellows equivalent to
Readers (of which Kelly Smith is one) which recognises enterprise-related expertise.
There is also a professorial route for enterprise. However, teaching and learning are also
recognised in this way and excellence in enterprise education can feature in both.
Incentives for other stakeholders contributing to entrepreneurship education
As regards incentives for other stakeholders contributing to EE, Kelly Smith explained
that there may be some remuneration. However, most guest lecturers will not be
incentivised and would probably not expect to be. Much is done on a pro bono basis.
5.4.3 Mindsets and attitudes
A commitment to develop entrepreneurial mindsets and encourage entrepreneurial
behaviour can be seen in all items mentioned above. Further examples include working
with a social enterprise fund for Universities – HEFCE UnLtd – to provide grants to staff,
students, and graduates up to one year to encourage social enterprise start-up. Eleven
grants were provided to the value of £42,000. One of the grants helped start-up
Collabhub described above. A second helped seed a social enterprise support
consultancy idea called CASE Futures lead by University staff, one of which has now
registered for an Enterprise Doctorate to explore business models and potential spin out.
In another recent initiative, a student-led “law clinic” and an events management
company run by placement students took up residence in a Huddersfield shopping centre
to offer their services to the community.
22
These endeavours lead by entrepreneurial staff
were supported by their academic Schools and encourage entrepreneurial thinking in the
students involved.
The results of a recent survey of 100 post-graduate research students at the UoH
showed that the majority of them identified with entrepreneurial attributes (Smith at al.
2013): “They were positive towards enterprise skills development with a large majority
(>60%) rating it as important or very important. 65% felt that their research could have
commercial impact, and 38% reported that starting up their own business appealed to
them.”
Research findings suggest that there are also UoH teachers who are reserved about
enterprise and entrepreneurship. However, to some extent it may rather be a matter of
wording, as one interviewee said: “Some tutors are put off by the words [enterprise and
entrepreneurship] as they are associated with business. Especially more traditional
disciplines. Staff use all kinds of language that fosters enterprising behaviours, i.e. talks
about the (..) industry, starting business, transferable skills, innovating, inventing,
designing.”
22
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/uhbs/lawclinic/.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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5.5 Outreach to external stakeholders of EE
5.5.1 External stakeholders involved in entrepreneurship education
Enterprises
The UoH involves many external stakeholders and many different types of stakeholders
into its EE. Enterprises play a particularly important role. All of the university’s study
programmes are required to have industry or professional input into the approval process.
In many instances this will involve small business and entrepreneurs. Several modules
will include guest speakers such as entrepreneurs in lectures. Enterprises and
entrepreneurs benefit for example the School of Art, Design and Architecture.
23
As
another example, the UoH’s Business School has an Advisory Panel with entrepreneurial
representation
24
and Partners in Law and Partners in Accountancy schemes which
provides students with networking, mentoring and training opportunities via internationally
renowned legal and accountancy firms.
25
The UoH has strategic alliances with 3M and Siemens. Entrepreneur Theo Paphitis,
owner of the UK stationary company Ryman, has delivered master classes and has
invited students to Ryman’s Head Quarters.
Financial institutions
In the field of EE, the UoH interacts with Funding Circle, a large peer-to-peer funding
platform (see section 1.1.3 above).
Support services
The university has strong links with the Local Enterprise Partnership and Kirklees
Council’s Economic and Creative Economy teams. It has Partners in Law and Partners in
Accountancy schemes. Consults often give their time pro bono to help support students’
business ideas. The Enterprise Team has also negotiated support, pro bono in the first
instance, with specialist providers such as IP Lawyers. There are links with the local
Chamber of Commerce, and support potential via the 3MBIC incubator.
Incubators, accelerators, science parks and technology parks
The UoH’s campus hosts the 3M Buckley Innovation Centre, “where global companies
(..) sit alongside innovative start-ups and our best student and graduate businesses”. The
centre was funded with £12 million by the ERDF. The UoH considers it a “cross-sector
hub for open innovation”. The UoH is also a partner in a project to establish a so-called
Globe Innovation Centre in West Yorkshire, linked with the 3MBIC.
26
In January 2015 the
UoH was awarded funds towards another university-related incubator for advanced
manufacturing and the digital and creative industries.
23
See examples athttp://www.hud.ac.uk/research/researchcentres/circ/externalrelationships/.
24
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/uhbs/businessschool-about/advisoryboard/.
25
See for examplehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/uhbs/businessschool-about/partnersinlaw/.
26
Seehttp://www.hud.ac.uk/news/2014/january/theglobeinnovationcentregrantedplanningapproval.php
.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
23
5.5.2 International relationships
The UoH’s international relationships in EE include, for example, educator training
through attendance and presentations at international conferences, being part of the
Santander international network of Universities, and links with 3M as a global company
supporting.
5.6 Impact and lessons learned
5.6.1 Evaluating impacts of entrepreneurship education
Overview of impact evaluation methods applied
While the UoH does not as yet systematically collect and analyse data about the impact
of its entrepreneurship education, there is quantitative and qualitative data indicating such
impact. Impact indicators relate to numbers of students supported in starting a business,
numbers of students who started a business, and the survival rate of these businesses.
Statistics on students supported and on start-ups from the UoH
The UoH’s submission to the UK’s National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education
2012 bi-annual mapping survey showed that over 7,000 students benefitted from
curricular offers and extra-curricular enterprise activities. The university’s Enterprise
Team helps more than 100 students and graduates per year to explore self-employment
and business through pre-start activities. Approximately 35 students and graduates per
year have converted their explorations into actual start-up to date. The UoH expects this
figure to increase with an increase in the numbers being supported since opening of the
Duke of York Young Entrepreneur Centre in 2013. Kelly Smith said that “our Enterprise
Team (...) has helped literally hundreds of new entrepreneurs start their business
journey”. The UoH ranks in the UK top ten for undergraduate and postgraduate
employability, student placements in industry, and the number of student and graduate
businesses supported. The UoH ranked 11
th
for graduate businesses surviving more than
three years in 2012.
27
Data from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education
(DLHE) survey in 2011/2012 and 2012/2013 showed that the vast majority of self-
employed graduates remain in the North of England six months after graduation. See
Annex 3 of this case study for more detailed data about start-ups and self-employment of
UoH graduates.
Such impact data need however to be interpreted cautiously. In a working paper for the
ISBE 2014 conference, Kelly Smith (2014) concluded on the values of UK surveys about
start-ups from universities: “The overall picture is complex and issues are present in each
data set that need careful consideration in order to understand what is being shown. (...)
Data on HE-support student and graduate business start-up is routinely collected via
surveys and reports to external funders but there is a lack of literature assessing their
reliability and appropriateness for measuring impact of the HE sector on start-up, survival,
and growth.”
27
Data from University of Huddersfield (2012).
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
24
Qualitative indicators of UoH EE impact
UoH students and business support alumni have been regular winners of regional and
national competitions relating to enterprise and entrepreneurship. They have been
featured on television programmes including BBC 3’s “Be Your Own Boss”.
28
Research for this case study found that the UoH’s intention is to foster the emergence of
small businesses, not necessarily fast-growing ones. As UoH’s entrepreneurship
Professor Gerard McElwee said: “There is a case to argue that there can be more value
to the regional economy in creating ten small ventures than one larger SME. Multi-
disciplinary approaches to supporting new venture creation has to be the way forward,
whereby students and staff from differing disciplines work together to create new
opportunities.” Some examples of new business established by students and graduates:
? EG Visuals Ltd., an animations service provider, by recent graduates and Duke of
York Young Entrepreneurs of the Year Award winners;
? Jacob Hill of the Lazy Camper, a provider of quality camping equipment, in
September 2014 a BA Enterprise Development degree student;
? U-Lott, a university lottery provider, a social enterprise started by two BA Enterprise
Development degree students;
? Hypersloth, a computer-animated games studio started by Enterprise Placement
Year Alumni and UoH students;
? ProperMaid, an innovative baking product caterer, started by a graduate from 2008.
Impact through board memberships
UoH experts also provide high-level leadership in entrepreneurship education through
sitting on boards of Enterprise Educators UK and the Institute of Small Business and
Entrepreneurship as well as actively contributing to national policy including the QAA
Guidelines for Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Education. UoH staff and PhD students
regularly present at events and publish on enterprise education topics.
29
5.6.2 Lessons learned
Summary of lessons learned from this case
The UoH provides insightful experiences on many different levels, mainly in
conceptualisation and organisation. All in all, five key “lessons learned” can be extracted
from the case study. They explain the foundations for the UoH’s approach to make every
student encounter EE at some point of study and to make EE teaching “everyone’s
responsibility”:
Conceptualisation of “entrepreneurship” as “enterprising and venturing”: The UoH
distinguishes between “enterprise” (“having an idea and making it happen”) in the sense
of behaving entrepreneurially without necessarily starting a business, and
“entrepreneurship” in the sense of new venture creation, i.e. actually starting a business.
This conceptualisation may help reaching students who do not seek to start a business –
and teachers who do not seek to support students in starting businesses – but who may
apply their enterprising thinking and behaviour for the benefit of their individual career
28
Data from University of Huddersfield (2012).
29
Information from University of Huddersfield (2012).
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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and for the economy and society at large. For some students and teachers even the term
“enterprise” may be unattractive. They may prefer terms like designing, inventing,
innovating.
Ensuring sustainability of EE through support from high management: Strong
leadership from the Vice Chancellor was apparently the most important reason why
entrepreneurship and EE became key objectives of the UoH and were developed ever
stronger in the past five years. Having established the positions of a Pro-Vice Chancellor
for Research and Enterprise, a Director for Enterprise and a Head of Enterprise as well
as involving the Deans helps sustain these objectives.
Enabling EE throughout the university’s schools through decentralised teaching:
Kelly Smith stated that “perhaps the novelty of our approach is that you can find
enterprise and entrepreneurship education almost everywhere at the University of
Huddersfield”. The UoH seeks to ensure delivering EE throughout the university by
involving teachers who are no experts in entrepreneurship. This approach can be
characterised as decentralised, as opposed to a possible approach in which EE courses
are offered through one central unit, which could potentially be the business school.
Enabling non-business teachers to impart EE through a train-the-teachers concept:
The UoH enables non-business teachers to impart EE through a concept for “training the
trainers”. Internally, the concept includes support from the UoH’s Enterprise Team, staff
development sessions organised by the Teaching and Learning Institute, and attendance
at enterprise-related sessions at the UoH’s annual Teaching and Learning Conference.
Externally, support includes instructions from Enterprise Educators UK (the UK’s national
network for enterprise educators) as well as attendance of EE good practice workshops
and the annual International Entrepreneurship Education Conference.
Supporting enterprising students and managing EE through an “Enterprise Team”:
The UoH’s Enterprise Team, an organisational unit of the UoH, plays a crucial role in
supporting enterprising students as well as contributing to the development of EE across
the university’s Schools.
Transferability to other universities
EE at the UoH has many characteristics that could potentially be adopted by other
universities. This may apply in particular to the Enterprise Team as an organisational unit
as well as decentralised EE teaching and a specific concept for teaching the teachers.
The UoH does not have a very specific profile, no outstanding endowments and no very
specific preconditions that would make it particularly difficult to transfer its approach
elsewhere. One could assume that the UoH’s approach might work best at universities
with a traditional strength in engineering and business, just as the UoH. However, the
UoH is also strong at fields that are not obviously linked with enterprise and
entrepreneurship but which have considerable related activities.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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References
Research for this case study was conducted by Stefan Lilischkis, senior consultant and
researcher at empirica GmbH, member of the team of the study for supporting the
entrepreneurial potential of higher education (sepHE). Sources and references used
include the following.
Interviews
Gerard McElwee, Professor of Entrepreneurship, Business School, University of
Huddersfield, 9 December 2014.
Michelle Waite and Daniel Bye, Enterprising graduates, Business School, University
of Huddersfield, 9 December 2014.
Philip Clegg, Enterprise Team, University of Huddersfield, 9 December 2014
Focus group discussion with four students of the BA Enterprise Development
degree and participating observation in an ensuing lecture about social enterprise,
Business School, University of Huddersfield, 9 December 2014.
Mike Kagioglou, Dean, School of Art, Design and Architecture, University of
Huddersfield, 8 December 2014.
Ruth Taylor, Senior Lecturer, Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield /
Damian De Luca, Executive Director, Canalside Studios, University of Huddersfield,
8 December 2014.
Wolfgang Faber, Reader, School of Computing and Engineering, University of
Huddersfield, 8 December 2014.
Jess Power, Director of Teaching and Learning, School of Art, Design and
Architecture, University of Huddersfield / Leigh Flemming, Subject Area Leader for
Mechanical Engineering, School of Computing and Engineering, University of
Huddersfield, 8 December 2014.
Caroline Pringle, Senior Lecturer in Digital and Practical Journalism, School of
Music, Humanities and Media, University of Huddersfield, 8 December 2014.
Tim Thornton, Dean, School of Music, Humanities and Media; Pro Vice-Chancellor
for Teaching and Learning, 8 December 2014.
Kelly Smith, Head of Enterprise, University of Huddersfield, 6 August 2014, written
responses to questionnaire.
Kelly Smith, Head of Enterprise, University of Huddersfield, 16 May 2014, phone
interview.
Literature
Anderson, Stu; Culkin, Nigel; Penaluna, Andy; Smith, Kelly (2014): An Education System
fit for an Entrepreneur. Fifth Report by the All?Party Parliamentary Group for Micro
Businesses. February.
Dobson, Elizabeth (2015): Permission to Play: Fostering Enterprise Creativities in Music
Technology through Extracurricular Interdisciplinary Collaboration. In: Burnard,
Pamela; Haddon, Elizabeth (2015): Activating Diverse Musical Creativities – Teaching
and Learning in Higher Music Education. Chapter 5. Bloomsbury Academic.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
27
HESA, Higher Education Statistics Agency (2014a): Table 1 - All students by HE
institution, level of study, mode of study and domicile 2012/13. Excel file. Last
accessed 12/5/2014. (Downloaded fromhttp://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php/content/view/1973/239/.)
HESA, Higher Education Statistics Agency (2014b): Table 1 - Table 1 - All staff by HE
institution, academic employment marker and mode of employment 2012/13. Excel
file. Last accessed 12/5/2014. (Downloaded fromhttp://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php/content/view/1973/239/.)
QAA, The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (2012): Enterprise and
entrepreneurship education: Guidance for UK higher education providers. September.
(Downloaded fromhttp://www.qaa.ac.uk/en/Publications/Documents/enterprise-
entrepreneurship-guidance.pdf.)
Smith, Kelly; Williams, Dina; Yasin, Naveed; Pitchford, Ian (2013): Enterprise skills and
training needs of postgraduate research students.
Smith, Kelly (2014): Measuring the impact of enterprise education and entrepreneurship
support in Higher Education: Can routinely collected data be of use? Working paper
for the ISBE Conference 2014. Forthcoming.
University of Huddersfield (2013): Teaching and Learning Strategy 2013-2018. (Available
athttp://www.hud.ac.uk/media/universityofhuddersfield/content/tlinstitute/documents/tl_st
rategy_2013-18.pdf, last accessed 15/5/2014).
University of Huddersfield (2013): Annual Review 2012. (Available athttp://www.hud.ac.uk/media/universityofhuddersfield/content/documents/aboutus/3689
7_UoH_Annual_Review-low%20FINAL.pdf, last accessed on 15/5/2014).
University of Huddersfield (2012): Untitled extract from the expanded submission to the
competition “entrepreneurial university of the year”. Informal document.
Wilson, Tim (2012): A Review of Business–University Collaboration.
Professor Sir Tim Wilson DL. February 2012.
Witty, Andrew (2013): Encouraging a British Invention Revolution: Sir Andrew Witty’s
Review of Universities and Growth. Final report and recommendations. October 2013.
Young, David (2014): Enterprise for all. The relevance of enterprise in education. June.
Websites
3M Buckley Innovation Centre (3MBIC):http://www.3mbic.com.
Canal Side Studios:http://www.canalsidestudios.com/about.html.
Collabhub:https://www.facebook.com/groups/collabhub/.
Dragon’s Den:http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006vq92.
EG Visuals:http://www.egvisuals.co.uk/, last accessed 28/9/2014.
Funding Circle:https://www.hud.ac.uk/news/allstories/firstuniversitytoinvestinpeer-to-
peerlending.php, last accessed 25/8/2014.
Hypersloth Company:http://www.hypersloth.co.uk/, last accessed 28/9/2014.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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iDEA - the inspiring Digital Enterprise Award:http://www.hud.ac.uk/news/2014/august/unibacksgoodidea-
theinspiringdigitalenterpriseaward.php, last accessed 28/9/2014.
Jacob Hill of the Lazy Camper Company:http://www.thelazycamper.co.uk/jacob-hill-24-
w.asp, last accessed 28/9/2014.
ProperMaid:http://www.propermaid.co.uk/about-us/, last accessed 29/9/2014.
The Globe Innovation Centre granted planning approval, UoH news, 24/1/2014:http://www.hud.ac.uk/news/2014/january/theglobeinnovationcentregrantedplanningapp
roval.php.
U-Lott Company:http://u-lott.com/our-business, last accessed 28/9/2014.
Umph!:http://www.umph.uk.com/?page_id=2.
University of Huddersfield, Enterprise Team:https://www.hud.ac.uk/enterprise/, last
accessed 27/1/2015.
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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Annex 1: Contents of EE degree courses
Enterprise Development BA(Hons) 2014-15
At a Glance
UCAS code: N190
Start date: 22 / 09 / 2014
Duration: 3 years full-time
Places Available: 30 (this number may be subject to change)
Course Type: Full Time
Entry Requirements: Minimum entry requirements include one of the following:
• BBB at A Level
• From DMM-DDM in National Diploma
• 300 UCAS tariff points
We welcome students of any age and will consider each applicant, via interview, on the
strength of their motivation and suitability for the course. Entrants to the course would be
expected to demonstrate the following personal qualities: self assurance and self
confidence; motivation to do something on their own; a willingness to accept
responsibility for their own decisions and actions; in possession of drive and a
determination to succeed; comfortable with setbacks.
The course
This distinctive and original course has been designed to help young entrepreneurs start
and run their own business whilst studying for a degree. Dragons’ Den panellist and self-
made retail millionaire Theo Paphitis has given his support and backing for this
pioneering degree at Huddersfield. Over the three years of the course you'll have the
benefit of access to several successful entrepreneurs, including Theo, who has agreed to
mentor students with his very own ‘Masterclass’. In a managed risk environment you'll
screen opportunities to find one with real potential, plan the business, launch it and grow
it. We develop the idea, the person and the business so you can graduate with both a
degree and a viable business. You'll receive guidance and mentoring from our own
Enterprise Team business incubation service and from external professionals, as well as
help in finding the necessary funding to get your business off the ground.
Course content
On this course you’ll start your own business while you study the necessary business
disciplines. You will focus initially on the process of identifying and screening a number of
ideas, homing in on one that is viable. Once you’ve decided on your business
opportunity, you’ll develop your plan and start your enterprise. Finally, you’ll operate your
business in the final year and gain credits from this experiential learning. We maintain
links with a wide range of successful businesses and organisations. We encourage you to
network with successful role model entrepreneurs, professional experts and external
mentors as well as our Business School and Enterprise Team staff. Most types of
business are relevant and possible and there is some opportunity to study more technical
support modules from across the University.
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Year 1
+ Marketing Analysis
+ Enterprise Development 1: Developing The Entrepreneur
+ The Legal Environment of Business and Employment
+ Accounting for Managers (Foundation)
+ Creativity and Innovation for Business
Year 2
+ Small Business Enterprise and Planning
+ Management and Research Methods
+ Enterprise Development II - Developing the Business Plan
Plus one option choice of either:
+ Customer Insight
or
+ Market Research and Consultancy
or these three modules:
+ Marketing Communications
+ The Customer Experience
+ Introduction to Operations Management
Year 3
+ Business and the Entrepreneur
+ Enterprise Development III - Developing the Business
+ Enterprise Development Dissertation
Teaching and assessment
You'll learn through lectures, seminars and tutorials, with a strong focus on practical work.
Our varied assessment methods, which include assignments, exams and individual
project work, are focused upon the development of transferable skills which will provide
immediate benefit in your future career.
Facilities
The Business School was opened in 2010 at a cost of £17m and is the most eco-friendly
building on campus. It's a state-of-the art facility and provides you with a modern,
professional environment in which to learn and develop. Located right next to the
Huddersfield Narrow Canal it’s in a leafy and picturesque location at the heart of the
campus.
Our students can take advantage of start-up facilities and business support in the Centre
for Young Entrepreneurs. The Centre is located in the University’s new £12 million 3M
Buckley Innovation Centre which was opened by HRH The Duke of York in May 2013.
(Source:http://www.hud.ac.uk/courses/2014-15/full-time/undergraduate/enterprise-development-
ba-hons/, last accessed 15/5/2014)
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Master of Enterprise
The Masters of Enterprise (MEnt) programme allows you to undertake a one year (full
time) or two year (part time) research degree. It contains little or no formal taught
component. Such programmes are attractive to those wanting a briefer research degree
than a PhD. It is ideal for individuals wishing to explore a potential business or social
enterprise idea, either to start-up their own business or for a new venture within public- or
private-sector organisations. The emphasis will be on enterprise creation and personal
entrepreneurial development within the chosen area, rather than on the study of business
organisations. On graduation, you will have acquired entrepreneurial knowledge,
behaviours, and skills with the ability to use research to develop and underpin your ideas.
Depending on your research project, you will be in a position to take a new service or
product to market; increase your likelihood of success in business, social enterprise, or
self-employment; and have a better understanding of issues impacting on enterprise
activity related to your area of research.
The Research Programme
The programme of research normally involves a literature study, followed by the critical
and reflective development of an evidence-supported business plan. The supporting
evidence might include market research; empirical testing of materials, methods, or
procedure; or full discussion of appropriate academic literature. A short version of the
business plan should be provided in an appendix to your research thesis. You are
expected to work to an approved programme of work including appropriate programmes
of postgraduate study (which may be drawn from parts of existing postgraduate courses,
final year degree programmes, conferences, guided reading or a combination of study
methods). The programme of research is assisted by these background and related
studies which can be especially important if you are a part-time/mature student who may
have been away from formal studying for some time.
Supervision
You will have a minimum of one main supervisor who will normally be part of a
supervisory team, comprising of up to three members. At least one member of the
supervisory team will have a successful track record of supervision at the appropriate
level, and at least one member of the supervisory team will be currently engaged in
research in the relevant discipline(s) so as to ensure that the direction and monitoring of
the student's progress is informed by up to date subject knowledge and research
developments. They will be supported by an enterprise adviser, normally based in the
University, although an external adviser may also be considered depending on individual
project requirements. The research supervisor(s) will work with the student to select
taught modules appropriate to their research project, and provide subject-specific
guidance; the enterprise advisor will provide advice on issues such as business or social
enterprise start-up, self-employment, or knowledge transfer.
Assessment
Examination for a Masters by Research is by thesis. The text of the thesis should not
normally exceed 25,000 words. Where the submission is accompanied by material in
other than written form or the research involves creative writing or the preparation of a
scholarly edition, the written commentary should normally be a minimum of 5,000 words.
(Source:http://www.hud.ac.uk/researchdegrees/typesofresearchdegrees/masters/masterofenterprise/, last
accessed 15/5/2014)
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Annex 2: Description of an exemplary credit-bearing course outside the Business
School
Enhancing employability: good practice in enterprise education
Name: Caroline Pringle
Role: Senior Lecturer Digital and Practical Journalism
Institution: University of Huddersfield
Activity/practice: what it is and why it is innovative and/or offers something
different;
Magazine Design and Production “analyses the diversity and complexity of the magazine
market and considers the nature of design and production. The economics, costs,
techniques, and organisation of design and production are examined and the nature of
the publishing industry investigated. The module also looks at the market for new
magazines, and investigates how editors and publishers identify and develop new
opportunities.”
This module, delivered to Journalism students (and offered to Business with Design
students), offers a holistic view of the Magazine industry and production process; it allows
students to see through a project from conception idea for a magazine, to the production
of a dummy copy, via market research, budgeting, design iteration and marketing. All of
this is then presented to a Dragon’s Den style panel of Industry professionals that the
staff group have built up over the years.
The delivery of the module is fairly traditional in the first term laying the ground work of
knowledge and learning, via lectures (including visiting practitioners), seminars and
practical design workshops.
In the second term students work in groups as a business team, taking on responsibility
for design, editorial, business and finance. They are provided with a production schedule
and all sign a contract agreement. We hold drop-in production workshops instead of
traditional classes, this is to encourage a production environment and encourage informal
peer collaboration and assessment.
These session runs throughout Friday afternoon and must include a production meeting
with a tutor. Production meetings include feedback and directed learning, adhering as
closely as possible to the production schedule. It also allows us, the tutors, to ensure
work is progressing at a good rate for completion.
While each student takes ultimate responsibility for an area of the project, the aim is that
they then delegate tasks to group members, ensuring all students tackle a range of tasks
and skill sets. This includes writing copy, market research, page design, sourcing and
contacting relevant advertisers and building a web/digital strategy.
The culmination of the project is a 12 page dummy copy of the magazine with
representative copy, design and advertising; a portfolio of evidence that this is a viable
magazine product, including market research, media pack, style guide and design
analysis, web strategy, basic balance sheet and basic business plan; this is all presented
to the panel of industry professionals and tutors.
The presentation is treated professionally and the panel ask challenging and pertinent
questions. While their role is not to mark students, they add a real world angle to this
sepHE case study: University of Huddersfield – v1.3
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assessment. Practitioners range from magazine and newspaper editors, to print and
digital media designers to online marketing strategists working in the publishing industry.
How students are engaged; students become very invested in this project, often
producing above and beyond what is expected.
The weekly meetings with tutors and the production schedule serve to break down a
large and potentially unwieldy project in to reasonable and achievable targets, these are
skills that are incredibly important in enterprise and in honours level modules and beyond.
The production afternoons provide a flexible frame work for students to work in and are
incredibly productive and positive working environments, ensuring that groups and
students remain motivated and engaged.
Outcomes and evidence of impact: General outcomes are that students can see the
whole process of production, putting the journalism writing and content production in
context. The project also encourages the embedding of skills from outside the module,
post pertinently at the moment web skills in implementing web strategies, and while this is
addressed in teaching, students regularly bring their own skills and knowledge to the
project.
Every year at least one of these projects will be taken further, into further education
based projects or on to actual publications, this year a group took elements of their
magazine idea and approached one of their advertisers with a magazine proposal, they
went on to produce two 30 page digital magazines for this external client as part of an
honours level module. The success of this has led to the client commissioning regular
publications.
The panel that attend as Dragon’s are regularly very impressed with the standard of work
this module produces and this has led to a range of work experience places, for final year
students, these include Press Association, Excelle Magazine and Barnsley Chronicle.
Magazine Design and Production
Intermediate Level
Core for: BA(Hons) Journalism
Optional on: BA(Hons) Music Journalism
BA(Hons) Sports Journalism
BA Hons Business with Design
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Annex 3: Statistics about start-ups from the UoH
The UK’s Higher Education – Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey
shows data for start-ups from universities. In terms of the wider university provision, the
UoH’s HE-BCI data for graduate start-ups (up to two years from graduation) and three-
year survival rates are provided below. The UoH only counts a graduate start-up if it has
received dedicated start-up support, which means that the actual number may be higher.
The numbers nominally dropped in 2011 – 2012 due to a change in reporting
requirements that required universities to have evidence of business registration. Before
2010/2011, the UoH was ranked in the top ten or eleven of UK universities.
Destinations of leavers from higher education provide self-reported data on self-
employment and exploration of business start-up six months after graduation. The UoH
rates of self-employment and business start-up are above national average. A new DHLE
question was included in 2011/2012 onwards, asking how well prepared the graduates’
universities prepared them for self-employment and freelancing. 40% of 3,660 graduates
responded that the university prepared them “well” or “very well”.
Year
Survey / indicator
2008/
2009
2009/
2010
2010/
2011
2011/
2012
2012/
2013
HE-BCI
Number of graduate start-ups created 33 45 39 20 21
Number of graduate start-ups still active which have
survived at least three years
51 61 77 51 58
DHLE
Self-Employment 70 129 165 161 179
Business Start-Up 24 35
Well or very well prepared for self-employment /
freelancing
39% 40%
The DLHE data also shows that the vast majority of self-employed graduates remain in
the North of England six months after graduation. 66% are based in Yorkshire and the
Humber with the majority of these in West Yorkshire in which Huddersfield is located
(49% of all self-employed individuals). Only 3% are based in Greater London. A
proportion of these businesses are likely to have been supported by the Yorkshire and
Humber ERDF-funded Graduate Entrepreneurship Project that was specifically designed
to help graduates start-up and remain in the region.
The mean salary for self-employed graduates who provided information was £23,000 in
2011/2012 and £23,900 in 2012/2013. These numbers are comparable or higher with the
whole survey population that reported mean salaries of £23,300 and £21,800
respectively. Although a large number of self-employed individuals were not drawing a
salary six months after graduation, four reported that they provided themselves with a
salary of over £50,000 in each of the two years for which this data has been recorded.
The UoH’s Enterprise Team data showed that 52 students and graduates signed up for
business start-up support in 2012/2013, 37 of who were pre-trading and 15 trading. The
Enterprise Team dealt with 281 general enquiries, held 450 one-to-one business advice
meetings, and delivered 14 events with over 400 attendees in total. Over 80 students and
graduates are currently signed up for Enterprise Support and access to the Duke of York
Young Entrepreneur Centre.
doc_556435505.pdf