A special event is to be held as part of the University’s 50th Anniversary celebrations to mark the achievements of Small to Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) that have attended the University’s Business Improvement and Growth (BIG) programmes. Led by the Centre for Employment, Competitiveness and Growth (cECG), the BIG initiative provides ambitious owner-managers, and those with whom they work, access to latest in management thinking helping them to improve and grow their businesses.
As Dr Simon Raby, Programme Lead for BIG, comments:
What better way to showcase the impact that the University is having on the regional SME community. This event will help to shine a light on the impressive changes and improvements that business owners with whom we are working have made to date, allowing others to benefit from the approach they have taken
The BIG 50 event aims to celebrate:
- The impact that the University of Kent’s Business School is having on the local/regional SME community;
- The academic excellence that the University holds in SMEs;
- The model of public/private partnership and how this has led to deeper engagement with local/regional communities;
- The way in which research has been commercialised and has generated revenue to invest in future research and enterprise engagement;
- The successes of current and past business owners and UG/PG students that have engaged with PSP and BIG;
- The way this has developed the knowledge, skills and abilities of staff at the University.
The University’s BIG programmes are driven by an ongoing multidisciplinary programme of research entitled “Promoting Sustainable Performance (PSP)”. Led by the Centre for Employment, Competitiveness and Growth (cECG), PSP aims to better understand how and why SMEs achieve sustainable growth and performance.
For further information contact Simon on S.O.Raby@kent.ac.uk