Kingston Business School has retained the Small Business Charter Award following a successful reassessment. The school will hold the SBC Award for a further five years. The assessor panel and the SBC Board were particularly impressed with the business school’s development in a number of initiatives, including its incubation facilities and programmes such as Bright Ideas, which the SBC has further recognised as an ‘exemplar’.
Kingston Business School works closely with an extensive network of local small businesses through their Hack Centre, expos, competitions, and the Upgrade Masterclass. The business school has developed strong networks with other business organisations within the region to enhance the support it can offer to their local community and has thereby been positioned as an ‘anchor’ institution.
The assessor panel praised the business school for providing a platform and facilitating connections between SMEs and students thereby helping students to undertake placements with SMEs. This has led to students finding permanent employment with SMEs and strengthening the business school’s engagement in this area.
The ‘Bright Ideas’ programme was highlighted by assessors, who said, “The dedicated start-up programme, Bright Ideas, has a long history of success. Starting off as a competition, it now offers a series of dedicated support workshops and mentoring for a period of 12 months or longer. The summer intensive programme is held over two months, supporting students to plan to take their ideas to the market. Students then have the chance to join a co-working space with hot desking, 1-2-1 mentoring and workshops for a reasonable fee, or in return for offering 13 hours per month support to the university.’’ For this impactful programme, Kingston Business School has been awarded an exemplar for the ‘Bright Ideas’ programme.
Kingston Business School is also delivering the SBC’s Leading to Grow and the Small Business Leadership Programme.
Anne Kiem OBE, Executive Director of the Small Business Charter and Chief Executive of the Chartered Association of Business Schools, said:
“We congratulate Kingston for retaining their SBC status and for the award of exemplar for the Bright Ideas programme. They have continued to demonstrate commitment to supporting small businesses, student entrepreneurship and the local economy. The business school has helped an impressive number of start-ups, many of whom continue to keep in touch with the business school and in turn offer their support.
Ian Roberts, Head of Kingston Business School said:
“We are delighted to have been reaccredited with the Small Business Charter Award for a further 5 years. This represents a good deal of passion and commitment in engaging with SMEs, and the wide range of excellent student initiatives and research output that Kingston Business School and the wider University has to offer. The Charter dimensions have helped us to redefine the Small Business Research Centre strategy and focus, and to build capacity to position the School as leading in the area of student start-up and entrepreneurial activity. Small businesses and Enterprise will continue to be at the heart of who we are and what we do.”