Government policy has identified that the development of a positive and interested attitude towards entrepreneurship and enterprise is a vital requirement for the future prosperity of the UK.The higher education sector has a key role to play in developing this approach with our undergraduates and postgraduates, as they consider and develop their future career paths. The Encouraging Student Enterprise project has been set up to work through the English Subject Centre to inspire and encourage English Studies students to explore the possibilities of working as freelancers and setting up their own business within the cultural/heritage sectors. Our work is recognised as having an important role to play nationally, and on 13 September we had the pleasure of attending the launch of the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship at The Treasury, London. The keynote speech was by Gordon Brown, who inspired us all with his assurance that Government funding would be forthcoming for investment into enterprise programmes.
Our research into the wide range of entrepreneurship and enterprise programmes that are available, has highlighted that there is a mismatch between the conventions of the economic model of training and the needs of staff and students within English Studies.The aim of the Encouraging Student Enterprise project, is to demonstrate alternative ways of approaching the concept of entrepreneurship through profiling the creative and innovative careers of graduates working within the cultural sectors. We will be producing an interactive DVD featuring these career case studies which will be available to all English departments within the higher education sector.
The project has now built up a bank of case studies of freelancers running their own businesses which have direct connections to English studies students. For example, we are featuring the work of a journalist who specialises in travel writing, a storyteller who works with children from schools in deprived areas to enhance their literacy skills, a playwright who is regularly commissioned for radio work, a marketing consultant whose portfolio includes producing community participation newsletters, a poet/children’s writer, and a theatre director who develops work with Special Needs schools.
In addition to these fascinating case studies, we will also be featuring the careers of English graduates who have gone on to work as freelance consultants or set up their own business.Amongst those who will be profiled are a film festival director, a financial services consultant, a literary magazine editor, and a PR consultant.
We have already begun work on the production of the DVD. A graphic designer has been commissioned to develop a moodboard to enable us to design a visual narrative that reflects the full bodied nature of English Studies. We will be using the finished art work on the Enterprise pages of our website.We are working with a multi-media solutions company to film and edit the DVD to the highest possible technical specifications. Filming has commenced as a pilot featuring the career of an English graduate who went on to become chief executive of a northern-based film festival.
A rigorous evaluation framework has been set up in collaboration with other Subject Centres throughout the UK, all of whom are working on similar projects with their subject communities.We will be reporting on progress over the coming months, and the evaluation results will be available after March 2005 when this phase of the project comes to an end.
