Entrepreneurship and innovation research
Nottingham University Business School has a long-standing tradition of impactful research in entrepreneurship and innovation, winning the first ever Times Higher Entrepreneurial University of the Year award and in being the top rated UK University for creating social enterprises (HESA 2020).
Our entrepreneurship research informs and evaluates award winning programmes and competitions to develop new ventures in marginalised groups such as women entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs with disabilities and refugee entrepreneurs. Research approaches include the creative use of digital technologies, big data and AI complemented by in depth ethnographic studies within disadvantaged communities.
Our innovation research draws together scholars from all Nottingham University Business School research centres to help organisations address pervasive societal challenges such as inequality, health and climate change. Research projects are co-created with small businesses, public, third sector and corporates working together to develop entrepreneurial capabilities to address the Sustainable Development Goals at a local, national and international level.
The Ingenuity Programme
Underpinned by findings generated from research carried out at the Haydn Green Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, (HGI) the Ingenuity Programme was established in 2016. The Ingenuity Programme exists to tackle the UK’s major social and environmental challenges through the creation of impactful new start-ups.
Informed and evaluated by our research, the programme brings together students, graduates, community organisations, universities, local government, corporates and the third sector to develop new start-ups that can create meaningful and significant impact.
In 2023, the programme delivered over £750K net social impact by supporting over 300 changemakers with 400 hours of social enterprise training and awarding £75K in seed funding.
Young Entrepreneurs Scheme
Research by our academics led the pedagogical and structural innovation of the Your Entrepreneurs Scheme (YES), an integrative learning intervention for early career researchers (ECRs) and technicians to experience how to commercialise research and be inspired to explore more entrepreneurial career paths. Over 6,000 individuals have participated, and an external evaluation of the scheme highlighted that YES contributed up to £1.8bn in economic impact through participants’ salary uplifts attributed to YES.
Support was provided from 400 organisations such as Royal Societies, GSK and Syngenta and more innovative career destinations were realised from the creation of drug development and sustainable energy ventures through to social enterprises addressing biodiversity and science communication. For instance, following participation in YES, drug development company Puridify subsequently raised £8m in investment.
By contrast, a participant was motivated to build a social enterprise in Malaysia to inspire schoolchildren within science and engineering and over 40,000 children have subsequently taken part.
The Ingenuity Lab
The Ingenuity Lab is where students and alumni of the University of Nottingham can explore their business ideas and start their own enterprises. We are based at the Ingenuity Centre on the University of Nottingham Innovation Park on Jubilee Campus.
The Lab offers a friendly and inspiring environment - our support, informed by our research, can help accelerate your business growth into the marketplace and towards entrepreneurial success.
In 2023, ventures based in the lab were rated as 2nd in the UK for their cumulative turnover of over £400m.
My Way Project
The My Way team - HGI’s Dr Isobel O’Neil along with local entrepreneurs Alexandra Hardwick and Debbie Clarke - launched a My Business My Way toolkit in January 2019. following ESRC IAA funding. This is a free-to-access interactive PDF to support the personal development of women who run their own businesses or those seeking to develop a new career pathway .
Since then, the My Way Project has successfully run programmes for women entrepreneurs in Nottingham (funded by Nottingham’s Impact Accelerator prize 2019); a programme for lower-income women in Nottingham (funded by the Smallwood Trust) and an online programme for women during the 2021 lockdown (funded by the Smallwood Trust-NLCF). Furthermore, the team has delivered International Women’s Day events for organisations such as WBA-Boots and AMPA.
In 2020 the team formed an Ingenuity Lab-based social enterprise – The My Way Project CIC. The CIC continues to deliver workshops and toolkits to support inclusive entrepreneurship and careers. 2023 saw the first Ingenuity Impact X My Way collaboration, whereby the team delivered eight workshops to provide support and personal development for Ingenuity23 participants along the journey to becoming an entrepreneur. In 2024, the team has been commissioned to deliver a personal development programme for Nottingham’s Stone Soup Academy: this is a six-week course delivered in the Ingenuity lab to support eight Year 11 girls to develop a social impact idea.
