GRRAIN will disseminate high impact academic knowledge and commercial services to the rural community in partnership with enterprise and entrepreneurship expertise from within the University .
Aberystwyth Business School (ABS)
The rural entrepreneurship GRRaIN will provide opportunities for ABS to showcase its research which are delivered through two research centres, the Centre for Local and Regional Enterprise (CLARE) and the Centre for Responsible Societies (CRiSis). The effectiveness of the CLARE seminar series will be enhanced by the GRRaIN. In addition, ABS’s PGcert in Change Leadership which is delivered through Menter a Busnes will benefit from the GRRaIN’s networks. There will be opportunities for students on the newly established professional pathway and for student enterprise activities. Opportunities also exist for Management KTPs which may arise from this collaboration.
The GRRaIN can provide a catalyst for further engagement with AberInnovation. The new Aberystwyth Innovation and Enterprise Campus is a £40.5m investment in translational research facilities to support companies to collaborate with academic experts to develop innovative products and services in the agri-sciences. AberInnovation’s growing community of industry tenants and members are a cohort eager to engage with, bringing them closer to the academic and student community in rural mid Wales. The GRRaIN will provide opportunities to further skill staff. There are opportunities for student employer engagement as well as student and graduate start-ups. GRRaIN will act as a facilitator to bring the university close to these businesses by engaging with the AberInnovation community and promoting opportunities for student work experience and graduate recruitment, staff upskilling and spin out company formation within this business community.
Institute for Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) Distance Learning (DL)
The core capability of the IBERS DL team is to synthesise the latest research findings and to adapt and present these in a manner that is most appropriate to the needs of industry. Academics within the team have backgrounds in: livestock agriculture, horticulture, agro-ecology, biotechnology, food science, ecology, genetics, epigenetics, environmental management, soil science, biogeochemistry, data analysis, molecular genomics, bioinformatics, and agri-tech. The GRRaIN will facilitate the development of tailored (online or workshop based) training, technical briefings, and knowledge exchange responses via the IBERS DL team. The multimedia capabilities of IBERS DL will mean that KE messages can be adapted to a plethora of formats. There are clear benefits for upskilling SMEs and enhancing business resilience.
The GRRaIN will be used as an additional channel to promote the two main functions of the Careers Service:
Support for students, graduates, staff and others setting up new business and social enterprises:
- Start-up skills workshops
- Hosting of inspirational entrepreneurial role models
- One-to-one mentoring
- Annual InvEnterPrize student ideas competition
- Annual start-up week
- Global Entrepreneurship week activity
- Start-up space
The embedding of EntreComp Skills (entrepreneurial competencies) into curricula, University-wide:
- Involving our network of ACEs (Academic Champions of Enterprise)
- Entrepreneurial activities as parts of modules
- The promotion of Intrapreneurship and the “Enterprising Mind-set” Student enterprise competitions will be badged under the GRRaIN and there will be support for student and graduate start-ups support, SMEs and Employer Engagement.