Developing enterprise and innovation

School of Sport and Service Management students took advantage of the option module Enterprise and Innovation to enhance their business acumen and employability.

The module, offered in the final year on many of the school’s undergraduate programmes, and provides the opportunity to develop a product idea, a business development idea or a social innovation. Student ideas ranged from a first week at Uni kit, a new restaurant concept, an app for identifying which bands are playing where and a new bin design that reduces odours and is easier to clean.

A key aspect of the module is the use of Skills on Tap, a free to use online tool which helps students identify what skills they need to develop in order to improve their prospects for future employment and how developing their enterprise and innovation skills can help with this.

Module feedback from students was overwhelmingly positive:

“Before the assignment, I had little experience and therefore confidence in myself to generate new ideas. Yet, because of the nature of the project, I was required to practise this skill. As I gained more knowledge, I became more confident in my own judgement, resulting in the creation of my original idea for the solution.” 

“I have been able to develop my creative ideas. Although I may previously have not considered myself as an idea generator, this piece of work has enabled me to step away from the problem and consider the bigger picture to develop a suitable and realistic solution.” 

“From this project, I believe I developed as an individual. Although my employability skills have increased dramatically, I believe my entrepreneurial skills have increased significantly more. Moving forward, I will continue to use the skills learned to develop myself, my current business, and future businesses.” 

“From an employability perspective, I believe this project has enabled me to become more attractive to potential employers as I can prove my interest in the development of the business I work for. I believe that I can add value to businesses, as opposed to going to work and only fulfilling a job. I additionally own the skills to identify improvements within a business, as well as creating an implementation plan to achieve such enhancements.” 

“Now I have completed the module and created an idea for technology development in bars, I now know the unknown (pitching) and am less nervous of standing up in front of a big audience for my future career.” 

Student Helena talks about her project ‘Clear my Plate’ in this short film:

Clare Griffiths, the University’s Business Development Manager (Entrepreneurship) and developer of the Skills on Tap tool, and Principal Lecturer Adam Jones show-cased the students business ideas at a recent International Conference. The presentation ‘Using digital learning resources to enable students to record and reflect on their employability skills, innovative behaviour, and entrepreneurial mindsets’ was attended by enterprise and entrepreneurship educators and practitioners from across the UK, Europe and South East Asia.

There was praise for the @skillsontapuk tool on Twitter following the conference:

Find out more about how we develop employability skills at the University of Brighton.