Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)
HEFCE promotes and funds high-quality, cost-effective teaching and research, meeting the diverse needs of students, the economy and society.
Creative Business Catalyst
The Creative Business Catalyst pilot will partner business school students with creative businesses to catalyse business growth and stimulate innovation.
Creative Business Catalyst aims to tap into the skill-base of UK business schools to exploit their experise in supporting the development of growth in the creative industries sector. The pilot project will pair MBA students with creative businesses to deliver a specialist, structured programme of business intervention and support.
The creative industries are vulnerable to many of the problems affecting small businesses across the economy. Business growth is hampered by:
- a need to develop business management skills;
- a need for creative firms to better understand how they can exploit the potential of their assets; and
- how to communicate that more effectively to partners and potential investors.
A growing number of business schools are now offering MBA modules and executive education courses, of relevance to business leaders within the creative sector. This represents only a small part of the expertise available to creative businesses from within business schools. This pilot aims to link up with mainstream MBA teaching, providing students with access to growing businesses, in a way that offers direct benefit to creative businesses.
Business mentors, with experience of running creative businesses, will be engaged at key points of the process to provide strategic input.
Time table for delivery
During the autumn term 2008, students will receive training in the principles of business growth. A pairing up process, linking student teams with business, will take place in December 2008 with project placements taking place early in 2009.
The business placements will conclude with the production of a Business Assessment Report. This will be made available to participating businesses and will form part of the formal review process with the student teams, counting towards their MBA programme.
For the businesses, this assessment will prepare them for appropriate next steps in business growth, for instance further accelerator programmes, financial advice or specialist support in key areas.
Partners
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