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https://www.facebook.com/UniversityofDundeeDundee has always embraced an entrepreneurial spirit, and in 2022-23, enterprise became a core part of our identity. The 2022 strategy, co-developed by our community and leadership, established “Enterprise and Engagement” as a cornerstone, creating a Pro-Vice-Chancellor for “Enterprise and Economic Transformation”. Recognised nationally for our entrepreneurial strengths, Dundee being named top in the UK by Octopus Ventures’ 2023 “Entrepreneurial Impact Ranking,” for supporting spin-out businesses. Our Centre for Entrepreneurship is a UK leader, with alumni achieving national and international success. Since 2017 the number of students receiving credit-bearing enterprise education annually has increased from 325 to 1,155 in 2023. Our new strategy leverages these strengths to enhance staff and student experiences, boosting our city’s economy, and inspiring partner institutions. 22/23 achievements: • Recognition of enterprise in academic staff workloads, performance, and promotion. • A strategy to embed enterprise in all teaching and PGR programs. • Growth of the annual “Venture” new business idea competition to a record 89 entries with £68,000 in prize funding. • A successful “Spinout Academy” pilot, offering training and support to 15 staff/researchers. • Finalising funding for our new Life Sciences Innovation building, set to open in Q1/25. • Leading the creation of “EdenTay.com” - founders’ community with regional partners. • Our Business School achieving Small Business UK Charter status, and who’s research has influenced Scottish Government policy on women’s enterprise support. • Launching the PathforPotential.com podcast, with one YouTube episode gaining 290k+ views globally. Our new strategy builds on consistent success and underscores our commitment to fostering an entrepreneurial culture, supporting our shared vision.
Finalist
Innovative & Entrepreneurial University of the Year Award
University of Dundee
Finalist of the Innovative & Entrepreneurial University of the Year Award
University of Dundee - United Kingdom
"“Empowering growth by igniting ideas, fuelling the economy, and transforming lives”"
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Summary
Key People
Professor Iain Gillespie FRSE
Principal and Vice-Chancellor
University of Dundee
Dr David McBeth
Vice-Principal (Enterprise and Economic Transformation)
University of Dundee
Professor Sir Michael Ferguson, CBE, FRS, FRSE
Interim Dean
School of Life Sciences,
University of Dundee
Brian McNicoll
Head of Entrepreneurship
University of Dundee
Dr Rachel Simpson
Assistant Director, Commercial
Research and Innovation Services,
University of Dundee
Dr Morag Martin
Innovation Cluster Manager
School of Life Sciences,
University of Dundee
Christopher Smyth
Head of Enterprise and Entrepreneurial Programmes
Centre for Entrepreneurship,
University of Dundee
Dr Vicotria Oziri
Enterprise Educator
Centre for Entrepreneurship,
University of Dundee
Susan Walker
Enterprise and Engagement Officer, Elected by Staff Council
University of Dundee
Elaine Kearney
Venture Creation Manager
Research and Innovation Services,
University of Dundee
Acknowledgements
The university would like to extend a huge thankyou to the huge number of volunteer experts, business advisors, workshop facilitators and speakers who continue to provide invaluable insights, experience and knowledge to help inspire, encourage and support our fledgling entrepreneurial minds across the university community.
We would also like to acknowledge our partner organisation Elevator.uk who diligently work alongside our Centre for Entrepreneurship to run different accelerator programmes on campus, for cohorts of high-potential businesses. In particular the summer academic accelerator programme continues to be a huge success, bringing students, staff and graduates of the various academic institutions on to campus for an 8-week intensive programme to fast-track their entrepreneurial ambitions.
Our relationship with Dundee City Council is strong and an example of this is also in working alongside Elevator this tri-part relationship has led to the hosting of various high-profile Fireside Chat events in our Centre including – Peter Jones CBE (Dragons Den), Will Ahmed (founder of Whoop), David Greenspan (experienced games industry executive), Mark Madden (investor and sports agent) and Andriy Shevchenko (Ballon d’Or winning football player).
We would also like to thank both of our Entrepreneurial Ambassadors Johanna Basford OBE (a Scottish illustrator and Dundee graduate who is known as one of the pioneers of mindfulness colouring books, selling 30m+ copies) and Mark Beaumont BEM, who heads up an angel investment syndicate, and our former rector, as well as being a long-distance cyclist who holds the record for cycling around the world in less than 79 days. Alongside promoting the university they have spent time recording and hosting the university’s PathforPotential.com podcast which takes successful entrepreneurs back to the early stages of their careers to uncover the experiences and decisions that led them down their path. Guests have included high-profile entrepreneurial minds such as Fearne Cotton, Deliciously Ella, and Holly Tucker.
Images
The newly launched strategy, co-developed by our community and leadership, established “Enterprise and Engagement” as a cornerstone, creating a Pro-Vice-Chancellor for “Enterprise and Economic Transformation”.
Named the top University in the UK for developing spinout businesses.
Welcoming the founder and CEO of Whoop.com (a $3.6bn wearable fitness brand) to campus to deliver an inspiring fireside chat to the next generation of entrepreneurs in the region.
Prof Norin Arshed, Chair of Entrepreneurship, who's impactful research on women’s enterprise policy in Scotland has been “vital” in establishing “a new model for the delivery of our women in enterprise programme to increase the numbers of women starting and growing their businesses in Scotland”.
Public-access Centre for Entrepreneurship facility which has been a beacon of entrepreneurship for the region, boasting an on-campus accelerator programme and dedicated teams and resources to deliver enterprise skills programmes and start-up/spinout advice.
The Innovation Hub is located in the heart of Dundee, immediately adjacent to University of Dundee city centre campus and it’s thriving centre of life sciences research and innovation. The Hub will provide specialist infrastructure to support life sciences commercialisation, collaboration, and innovation. The project is forecasted to support over 800 new life sciences jobs by 2053 and deliver over £190million of benefit to the local economy.
• Growth of the annual “Venture” business competition to a record 89 entries with £68,000 in prize funding.
• Launching the PathforPotential.com podcast, with one YouTube episode garnering 290k+ views globally.
Alan Mahon, co-founder of Brewgooder, delivered the University’s Annual Public Lecture in Entrepreneurship. Brewgooder is a B Corp with a foundation that has provided upwards of 150 million litres of clean water for people around the world; empowering some 155,920 lives and directly funding over 140 sanitation and clean water projects.
The university's extra-curricular enterprise skills training programme 'Enterprise Challenge' brings together students and staff across various disciplines and regional universities and colleges, providing them with skills certificates, new connections and the option of taking their business concepts forward with seed funding.
The inspiring Entrepreneurial Masterclass lecture series continued to run each semester bringing in successful entrepreneurs to share their stories of achieving significant entrepreneurial success.
The 7th annual, public-facing Entrepreneurship Week was delivered successfully with 13 events covering social enterprise, mental health for entrepreneurs, women in business, design think and sales/marketing sessions.
IMPACT STORY
Impacting lifes
In this period Professor Norin Arshed’s research focused on women’s enterprise policy in Scotland with key outcomes demonstrating how the top-down reproduction of stereotypical gender norms triggered ‘bottom-up’ legitimacy responses from women entrepreneurs and other stakeholders.
“Women do not need special support, they need different support to suit their environment, it is a case for elevating equity but more importantly it is an economic case to have more women create and grow their own businesses.”.
Five key recommendations were accepted by the Scottish Government:
1. To form a Scottish Women’s Business Centre to create an umbrella organisation for local delivery of support.
2. Partnership working to deliver programmes of gender-tailored support in Scotland, comprising several existing agencies, individuals and Scottish Government.
3. Charging each Scottish Women’s Business Centre with offering start-up programmes and growth (including early-growth) programmes of support to women business owners.
4. Embedding local Scottish Women’s Business Centres into the existing infrastructure, e.g., libraries, community centres, colleges, business centres, Business Gateway premises, etc., and not requiring new buildings, people and structures.
5. Establishing a governing board to oversee the strategic direction of the Women’s’ Business Centre and to hold the executive management team to account for their decision making and actions.
A Senior Policy Advisor described Arshed’s work as “vital” in establishing “a new model for the delivery of our women in enterprise programme to increase the numbers of women starting and growing their businesses in Scotland”. The research was critical for the government report – ‘Pathways: A new approach for women in entrepreneurship’ which helped launch the female entrepreneur Pathways Fund in October 2023 (£1.2million).
LEARNINGS
Lessons learned
Enterprise, new business start-ups and existing company scale-ups are playing a critical role in the continued reinvention of the Dundee City region. How has the University of Dundee therefore become a catalyst for this change?
A ‘Beacon of Entrepreneurship’ – the university in partnership with Elevator opened a public-access entrepreneurial facility on campus providing a galvanising beacon of entrepreneurship for the institution, bringing all of the entrepreneurial initiatives and activities together under one umbrella. The foresight for this facility emanated from the university’s senior leadership, recognising the benefits of a culture that nurtures entrepreneurial behaviour and a transformative mindset within students and staff, whilst uniting the university with the region.
The university strategy strongly lays out that enterprise and entrepreneurial thinking needs to be embedded within education, however it can be difficult to actively implement this approach across academic institutions. The university has therefore undertaken and put into action the findings of a research project examining academics’, in different schools, attitudes towards embedding enterprise education in the curriculum.
As a result, it was discovered that language is important to 1. students getting them to understand what ‘entrepreneurial mindset’ is, and 2. academic staff: for them to understand the valuable skills entrepreneurship can impart to their students. This research concluded that cognitively; by using more familiar terms, students will become more engaged in entrepreneurship. Exposure to entrepreneurial processes and methodologies can then help develop crucial skills for career progression and subsequently inspire both students and staff alike to explore their business ideas.
FUTURE PLANS
What's coming?
The University of Dundee recognises its importance to Dundee City and will therefore continue to design, implement and drive forward its strategy for entrepreneurship whilst ensuring the wider eco-system will see tangible benefits both economically and socially.
A clear example of this is our Biomedical Cluster project, led by Professor Sir Mike Ferguson, who believes its impact will be felt across the globe: “Companies and collaborations formed in Dundee will influence the future of healthcare by developing new drugs, treatments and medical innovations,” he said. “The time is right for us to convert our pre-eminence in research into tangible socio-economic benefit for the region, as well as health benefits for the world.”.
The TayCities Deal is helping to fund this activity, and includes the transformation of Wilson House (at Ninewells Hospital where our leading School of Medicine is based) into an innovative and collaborative environment where students, staff, clinicians, designers, engineers and data scientists can develop disruptive technologies for the healthcare industry. An expansion of the Thiel Cadaver Facility at the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification to meet growing industrial demand for device testing and development is the final element of the project.
An independent economic assessment predicts 280 new biomedical jobs being created by 2033, rising to 800 jobs £190million+ benefit to the local economy by 2053, providing huge impact for the city as it continues to transform itself from post-industrial decline into a 21st century city of science, design and technology.
