Loughborough University
Leicestershire, UK
LE11 3TU
+44 (0)1509 263171
Loughborough University

Student and Graduate Enterprise

Business Ideas Competition
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Employability

Your time at university will go so fast. So the sooner you can think about what will make you more employable, the better!

Enterprise is a great way to do more alongside your degree to help you become more enterprising and employable.

Enterprise is all about identifying commercial potential for your ideas and abilities. Being enterprising is about being innovative, creative, showing initiative, having a can do attitude and adapting to challenges.

Get formal recognition of personal development gained through participation in skills-related activities outside your degree.
Visit the Employability Award website

Watch the Employability Award video

There are plenty of clubs, teams and societies you can join to meet people with an interest in enterprise, giving you opportunities to boost your business skills and job prospects.


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Loughborough Students in Free Enterprise team helps tackle social issues through enterprise and makes a difference in the community while helping you develop the skills to become a socially responsible business leader.
Read more about SIFE at Loughborough
Visit Loughborough Students in Free Enterprise website

Loughborough Students’ Union has clubs and societies run by students for students. There are a number of clubs that offer plenty of opportunities to meet like-minded students and boost your business skills and job prospects. You can also get involved in Action Group projects that benefit the local community.
Visit Loughborough Students’ Union website

Young Enterprise East Midlands offers opportunities to work as a business volunteer in the region to inspire young people and equip them with business skills.
Visit Young Enterprise East Midlands website

Undergraduate placements

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Most of our departments offer undergraduate work placement (sandwich) degrees, allowing you to combine valuable industrial or professional experience with your academic studies. As well as boosting your career prospects and your confidence, you’ll earn a salary (typically £14-16,000).

Visit the sandwich placements website

Graduate placements

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Organised by Loughborough University, Graduate Gateway hand picks graduates for local businesses to carry out a 26-week assignment. All assignments are self-contained, graduate level and geared to delivering real results. You will be given a significant level of responsibility which will really help enhance your career prospects.

Visit the Graduate Gateway website

The University also operates a Knowledge Transfer Partnerships scheme which places postgraduate research students in companies for one to three years to boost product development, business expansion and performance improvements. 

Visit the Knowledge Transfer Partnership website

Success

Many of our students and graduates start up their own business ventures and we actively support them to become self-motivated, enterprising and highly employable.

Here you’ll find plenty of inspiring stories and sound advice from our fantastic student and graduate enterprise ambassadors. They’ve come from very different backgrounds with very different degree subjects. What they have in common is a knack for spotting a gap in the market and the ambition to make their business succeed.

Events

Loughborough Student and Graduate Enterprise events are free to attend and everyone is very welcome. Whatever your degree subject, if you have an interest in enterprise, please join in!

More events will be added very soon.

Date Event Workshop topic / speaker Venue Register
Wed, June 20th, 2012 Competition

Think Big Business Ideas

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Business School Lecture Theate



  

We reserve the right to update our programme at short notice

Our events fill up fast and many are strictly limited numbers! If you register and do not turn up, you will have taken someone else’s place. Please email us in advance if you cannot make it.

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about our events

Competitions

Here you’ll find a wealth of information about competitions for Loughborough students and regional to international initiatives to reward student and graduate enterprise.

Loughborough University competitions

Loughborough University Think Big Business Ideas Competition

Sometimes, the simple ideas can make a BIG difference.
Ecoshiki has championed the stylish Japanese art of cloth wrapping to reduce giftwrap waste. Rate My Placement has helped thousands of UK students boost their employability, SkyShot has fused high definition live action film and safety in extreme sport, onesixeight: fitness is making people healthier and happier on trampolines! What will you do?

Our Business ideas competition is here to help you turn your great idea into a great business. With BIG cash prizes and free advice from our business experts, there's no better time to Think BIG!

Just fill in our 2 question entry form by midnight 13 February 2012 Open to all undergraduates, postgraduates and alumni who graduated in 2011

Since starting up in 2002, our Business Plan Completion has received over 550 applications and has given out more than 60 big cash prizes to those student and graduate businesses. It’s a great way to kick-start your business, receive additional business advice and support, gain experience of pitching to potential investors and gain publicity and recognition.

Read the terms and conditions

Download the entry form

Download the entry form in Word

Download the poster

Art and Design Innovation Awards

We also have competitions for final year students from the School of the Arts and the Design School. These are judged during the annual Degree Shows at the end of the academic year.

National University Entrepreneur Competition

The Olympic Games is not only the greatest sporting event in the world, but also the biggest corporate networking event. Building on the opportunities created by the Olympics and Paralympics in London 2012, The Training Gateway and the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education (NCEE), along with UK Trade and Investment and the University of York, are running a national entrepreneur competition for every university in the year running up to the Olympics and Paralympics.

The competition will enable every UK University to submit up to two business plans outlining a brand new business idea inspired by and based around the opportunities created by London 2012. Business plans will be judged on their relevance to the opportunities created by London 2012, the business, its products and services, UK and international marketing strategy, and financial and long term sustainability.

Eligibility Criteria
Entries can be received from:
Any student or group of students enrolled within a UK HE institution
Any recent graduate or team of graduates (must have graduated after 1st June 2007 from a UK HE institution) Any individual or team of entrepreneurs currently working in / supported by a university incubation programme

How to Enter
Go to the website www.nue2012.org
1 Register as a student/graduate
2. On the home page click on "Download sample application form here"
3. Fill this sample application in and print it off
4. Either scan it and email it to m.pickles@lboro.ac.uk or take it to the Enterprise Office, Rutland Building addressed to Marina Pickles by 23th March 2012.

The 2 best entries will then be authorised by the Key User (Marina Pickles) and submitted to the full competition. An independent panel of judges will select the top 4 business plans, and the winners will be announced at York Racecourse on June 19th when the Olympic torch relay comes to the city.

Regional to international competitions

The New Entrepreneurs Foundation

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The aim of the New Entrepreneurs Foundation is to create a new generation of outstanding entrepreneurs who will play a role in Britain's future growth and prosperity and create new market-leading businesses.

The Foundation will give 25 of the UK's brightest, entrepreneurially minded young people the opportunity to work for a year with some of the country's leading entrepreneurs.

The Foundation has been set up to create year-long internships for up to 30 of the UK's brightest, entrepreneurially minded young adults from a range of backgrounds with leading entrepreneurs.

The programme is open to final year students, recent graduates and non-graduates who can demonstrate a keen interest in becoming a successful entrepreneur. Throughout the application process, the foundation will be looking for participants to demonstrate drive and ambition.

Technology skills and experience of starting a business already will also be highly desirable The programme for 2011-2012 has already started. The 2012-2013 programme will begin in September 2012. Applications opened in November 2011.

The programme will last 12 months and everyone on the programme will receive a basic scholarship salary from their host entrepreneur company. This will amount to £20,000 a year for those in London and £16,000 a year if placed outside London.

Additional scholarship funding to assist with living costs may be available on a case-by-case basis.

View the website here

National Young Masters Enterprise Awards

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Are you an ambitious student or graduate? Do you wish to be recognised by some of the largest companies in the UK? Well now is your chance to apply for the National Young Masters Enterprise Awards which will be held at Google's UK headquarters.  You can enter yourself to be nominated or a friend who you feel deserves to be recognised. The deadline for entries is the 10th February, visit the website to  find out more.

Saïd Global Entrepreneur Challenge

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SGEC is a global business plan challenge hosted by the University of Oxford's Saïd Business School. It is more than just a competition; based on the quality of an initial one-page business plan, applicants will receive mentorship and guidance from the University of Oxford's business students and alumni to help grow their ideas into practical 10-page business plans.

These business plans will be entered into a final competition where winners will be selected from six global regions. For further information, visit the website.

Engineering YES (Young Entrepreneurs Scheme)

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This national competition pits postgraduate research students and post-doctoral researchers from across the country against one another, giving them the skills and knowledge to commercialise their inventions.

Finalists get to stay in a hotel for three days and nights for an intensive residential workshop, culminating in a Dragon's Den style pitch. The competition typically takes place in June with a first prize of £2,000. Loughborough’s team, Grey Matter, picked up second prize in 2011 in a competition of over 60 teams from throughout the UK.

Enterprise Inc - business support bursaries worth £5,000

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This regional initiative encourages and supports students who want to develop enterprising ideas into businesses. Full or part time Loughborough students and recent graduates are eligible to apply for cash bursaries of around £2,500 along with £3,000 worth of generic and tailored business support to help your business succeed. Details of 2012 competition will be published soon.

Lloyds TSB Enterprise Awards

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Win up to £50,000 to support the growth of your business by entering the Lloyds TSB Enterprise Awards. Organised by Lloyds TSB Commercial and supported by the National Consortium of University Entrepreneurs (NACUE), the Awards offer prize packages to help nurture and grow your business including:
An overall cash investment of £50,000 to the national best enterprise
Cash investment prizes of up to £5,000 in the initial heats
Enhanced mentoring support packages at regional and national level
Business networking and promotional opportunities.
Lloyds TSB Enterprise Awards website

Shell LiveWIRE Grand Ideas Awards

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Running monthly since January 2009, the Shell LiveWIRE Grand Ideas Awards offer up to 4 prizes of £1,000 no-strings attached funding. You must be aged 16-30 (inclusive), based in the UK, and your business must have have been trading for less than 1 year.

Shell LiveWIRE website »

UnLtd Awards for social entrepreneurs

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UnLtd's Millenium Awards offer a range of opportunities to support innovative projects from social entrepreneurs. Individuals or informal groups can apply for Level One awards (typically £2,000) to help with the running costs of the project. Awards are typically given out in the Spring and the Autumn.

UnLtd website »

New business

Commercialisation Studio

The Studio provides a dynamic and supportive environment on campus for the University's creative graduates to develop their ideas, amongst their peers, into commercially viable products, services or social enterprises. In addition to professional work space, each graduate member benefits from access to University facilities, mentoring, business support and guidance.

Studio membership is currently available to graduates of the past year from the University’s School of the Arts and Loughborough Design School. We are in the process of expanding the service to support graduates from other areas of the University.

The Studio website »

Loughborough Innovation Centre

The Centre is located on the University's Science and Enterprise Park and offers start up incubation facilities for new and growing businesses. These range from a hot desk in a shared office to office and workshop units of varying sizes.

Reduced rates of £10 (+VAT) per month are available for students on virtual tenancies, enabling you to benefit from business postal address. For a specially reduced rate of £15 (+VAT), you can use the Centre’s address as their registered office as well as their mailing address.

Innovation Centre website »

Resources

We’re embedding enterprise and innovation across the University, so all our students not only gain academic knowledge but also develop enterprise skills with which to put their knowledge and expertise to good use.

Building on an excellent programme of extra-curricular activities that can count towards the Loughborough Employability Award, accredited education modules will become a key feature of all of our degree programmes.

This unique model will give you the opportunity to take part in enterprise education formally and informally, throughout your time at Loughborough.

Extra-curricular activities

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Student and Graduate enterprise events including workshops and forums featuring entrepreneurs, competitions are managed by Marina Pickles, the Student Enterprise Manager.

Based in the Enterprise Office, Marina can help you assess the commercial potential of any innovative business ideas and offers advice about how to protect and develop your idea, where to find funding to help grow your business. Marina and her colleagues can also provide advice on patents, copyright, trademarks, design rights, and confidentiality issues. Marina also coordinates the Business Clinics.

Learn more about Entrepreneurship and IP Commercialisation
An online course suitable for academics and post graduate researchers interested in finding out more about Entrepreneurship and IP Commercialisation is available via the University's Learn site. (requires log-in to Learn)

Business Clinics

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Speak one-to-one with business experts and consultants about any business queries at our free-of-charge monthly clinics.

Topics covered during these half-hour slots include Tax, Insurance, IP, Finance, and Investment. Clinics take place from 1-3pm, at Meeting Room C, Students Union and must be booked in advance. You must complete our disclosure form in advance in order to protect your idea.

Student and graduate project disclosure form

Enterprise education

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The Glendonbrook Centre for Enterprise Education, based in the School of Business and Economics, is our ‘hub’ for accredited enterprise education activity. It coordinates all departmental enterprise education as well as delivering some stand-alone modules, workshops and courses for undergraduates and postgraduates. The Centre has been established thanks a £1million gift to the University by one of the East Midlands’ leading businessmen, Lord Glendonbrook (formerly Sir Michael Bishop).

Information sheets

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We've compiled a list of PDF sheets to help students and graduates that are interested in innovation and enterprise.

Useful websites

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Business advice websites

Patent / invention websites

Social enterprise websites

Loughborough University websites

Regional networks