Cardiff Business School is one of the UK’s strongest research schools, with its research activity in enterprise and innovation having developed organically across the school’s five academic sections over several years. This approach, informed by the school’s Public Value Strategy, stands out in contrast to other schools, where small business research has been separated into stand-alone units. This has allowed Cardiff to exploit synergies across the university, not only in joint research activity with other schools, particularly in the social sciences, but also to make significant contribution to cross-disciplinary work. This approach has underpinned the school’s operations in its Centre for Advanced Manufacturing Systems at Cardiff and its role in assisting small manufacturing firms through the two ASTUTE programmes they run in partnership with the schools of Engineering and Medicine at Cardiff University, alongside academics at several other Welsh universities.
SMEs and social enterprise do not exist in isolation from large organisations or the public sector; their operations are developed and managed within supply chains, constrained by public sector procurement practices, as clients of large financial institutions and within the context of the regional economy. More recently, and informed by the school’s Public Value Strategy, the Cardiff Business School approach to research has allowed for the greater contextualisation of these issues in terms of social and environmental challenges. This approach has also allowed the school to be positioned centrally within university-wide research networks (such as the Responsible Innovation Network/Cardiff University Innovation Network) and a number of recent and emerging major projects within the university (notably, the school’s leadership of the SPARK project), as well as significant internal projects such as the £300k Panalpina Centre for Logistics and Manufacturing Research (addressing sustainable supply chains with significant potential for SMEs) which are regarded by the wider university as exemplars of commercial engagement activity. This cross-cutting research excellence also forms the basis of extensive academic engagement with government, business representative bodies, and a wide range of advisory work. It also supports a ‘ladder of engagement’ approach, increasing external support for student engagement activities.
The school’s research reputation extends back over several RAE/REF cycles. Programmes and knowledge transfer activities developed from the basis of this research excellence, such as the ongoing series of ASTUTE operations, have been in continuous operation since 2010.
The evaluation of Cardiff Business School’s recent research activity speaks for itself. The school has one of the largest concentrations of business and management scholars in the UK, and achieved an overall standing of 6th in the REF 2014, the highest outside Oxbridge and London (4th in 2008), with the highest sub-grade for research environment. Supporting this work, the school has managed £10m of externally funded projects comprising of KTPs, funding from commercial partnerships, EU structural funds and RCUK grants, which have led to significant levels of engagement with commercial, third sector and government stakeholders.
Approximately 15% of Cardiff’s 150 research active academics, drawn from all 5 school sections, from early career lecturer to senior professor, are actively engaged in research on small business, enterprise, entrepreneurship, and innovation. They are currently publishing in all the leading journals in the field, as well as showcasing research on these topics in the leading journals in other fields, and through this body of research are providing the full spectrum of new theoretical, methodological, and empirical insight.
These activities are supporting work with benefit for SMEs seeking to operate efficiently, innovatively and sustainably in international supply chains via large manufacturers or international logistics service companies such as Panalpina, as well as informing public policy and the work of public bodies, particularly in Wales, as they impact on the small business and social enterprise sector.