University of Gloucestershire Students’ Union

Innovation and Enterprise - University of Gloucestershire Students' Union

Innovation and Enterprise - University of Gloucestershire Students’ Union

NEW-NUS-Awards-2014-winner

Innovation & Enterprise
Gloucestershire SU

“Our aim is to make our Union and University a hub for social enterprise. We are advocates for the value of social enterprise as an educational tool as well its potential for making positive impacts in our community. We have set up our own social enterprises and provide varying support for innovation amongst our students/staff. Our aim is to increase engagement with social enterprise from our student body, provide life changing opportunities whilst introducing our University community to alternative and sustainable business approaches.

Problem- Students’ Union Resources.
We undertook a resource audit in 2012, where we looked at our assets, with the aim to maximise each asset to create maximum benefits to our members. We had a large disused greenhouse and decided a commercial venture in the form of a social enterprise that developed student skills would benefit students greatly.

Problem- Student Engagement
Historically this Union has engaged its students through its bars. We lost these in 2011 when the University accepted an external organisation’s tender bid. The SU faced a very large identity crisis- How do we now engage our students? This coincided with students increasingly asking for opportunities to enhance their employability and our research suggested students saw this as the primary function of their Union. This, coupled with the overwhelming popularity of a certain Portuguese Chicken establishment at our Freshers’ Fayre, led us to make use of our greenhouse with a social enterprise, the Cheltenham Chilli Company, that would engage students through skill development and its social aims. This provided a range of diverse opportunities and maximised space on campus. Student led research discovered poor eating habits amongst our students and a lack of awareness of where their food comes from so we focussed the social enterprise’s mission around championing and raising awareness of local food amongst students.

Problem- Students’ Union Reputation
Renowned for our sporting team’s behavioural issues, our students’ reputation has been greatly enhanced internally and externally. Our projects aimed to increase the positive awareness of what the Union does. The Union is increasingly seen as a leader within the institution of providing high quality opportunities for students. Academics and professional staff have bought into the concept of social enterprise and we are now looking at increasingly embedding our projects in academic courses. This is a huge difference to where we were two years ago, where we primarily relied on evening events to engage students.

Problem- Student Employability
Students want the SU to provide unique and engaging opportunities for them to develop. Our social enterprises provide the chance for students to develop skills in areas such as market research, brand design, product development, marketing, business strategy, business development and sales.

This has seen good levels of engagement from students wishing to gain practical business skills whilst also exposing them to sustainable business and the social aims of the enterprise. This is helping to develop graduates with a practical knowledge of CSR and sustainability concepts. The project has grown substantially over the last year and we are now engaging students through 3 other social enterprises, the Core Blimey Cider Company, Ohh Beehive, and the Minte Marketing Agency.

We are now supporting individuals with their entrepreneurial ideas and have seed funding (8K) for new social enterprise start-ups as well as delivering social enterprise workshops to hundreds of students. What started as one social enterprise has now seen us doing considerable work in this area and we are well on our way to becoming a hub for social enterprise in Gloucestershire.

The Greenhouse was disused for a number of years. We used reclaimed and recycled pots and tools, as well as staff and student time to revitalise the greenhouse. We have set up a ‘garden gym’ project with a local charity: weekly gardening sessions open to students, staff and community. This group has helped with the upkeep of the greenhouse, whilst learning about gardening techniques.

We have developed our opportunities primarily for students to develop skills. The Minte Marketing Agency undertook a branding exercise where its members put together a brief and let other members work towards it. The Bee Keeping enterprise has seen biology students completely take ownership of the location of the hives liaising with the local Apiary Society using their expertise to develop a project with real legacy. The Cheltenham Chilli Company has seen students write and execute a marketing strategy. Students have completed real meaningful work on these projects developing their own skills whilst further developing the success of the project.

The project has enabled students to develop their skills, improve their confidence, meet new people, experience new things and make a difference to their community.

“Working with the Cheltenham Chilli Company has helped me to expand in terms of using my degree in a real life setting, improving my skills for working life and making a difference to the community. I find it exciting and challenging to be at the start of a new venture in which I’m trying to take a product from creation to production to consumption.” Kate Francis 1st Year Marketing

We are growing our projects and we are working with the Royal Agricultural University to expand our social enterprise workshops and seed funding to their students. We are looking to work with the GFirst LEP and the Gloucestershire Third Sector to develop a countywide social enterprise strategy.

Our vision is to become the hub for social enterprise in Gloucestershire. We want to continue growing our existing social enterprises so they generate enough income to pay for an annual student placement. We want to see more students and young people in the county starting their own enterprises so we will be focusing heavily on getting as many students to attend our workshops as possible.

Next year we aim to run day workshops in numerous FE and HE institutions in Gloucestershire, introducing them to social enterprise and delivering sessions on writing business plans and pitching. We ideally want our students to be involved in the delivery of these sessions. ”

Nominated by Tom Newman, Students’ Union Staff

What some of the judges said…

“A nomination that showed a great use of previously abandoned resources (greenhouses) to start a social enterprise movement. The collaboration with local charities as well as other HE and FE institutions was excellent. The momentum behind their social enterprise initiatives is developing the skills and employability of students.”
Tim Larden, Endsleigh

Some comments from the night…