University Campus Suffolk wins a grant to help beat the recession
Apr 27 2009 12:00AM
University Campus Suffolk will benefit from a share of £328,000 grant to provide support to local people and businesses during the current economic downturn. In collaboration with the University of Essex, University Campus Suffolk (UCS) has been successful in winning this award from the Economic Challenge Investment Fund (ECIF), a fund supporting universities respond to the current economic climate.
In partnership with the University of Essex, Suffolk Learning and Enterprise Access Points (LEAPs), the Essex Development and Regeneration Agency and Colchester Borough Council, University Campus Suffolk will undertake initiatives targeted at recent graduates, the unemployed, and small to medium size businesses. Dr Janice Pittis, Director of Research and Enterprise at the University of Essex and Project Leader, said: “We want to limit the impact of the current recession on cohorts of our society who are at risk of becoming “lost generations”.
The project will allow University Campus Suffolk to benefit from the expertise of the University of Essex in delivering innovative courses and workshops focussing on employment and entrepreneurship. The programme will further enable UCS to develop a comprehensive capacity for student entrepreneurship and promote a vibrant enterprising student community. This would build on existing provision within the business school, the successful model of the University of Essex and support within the UCS Enterprise Directorate.
Dr Peter Funnell, Director of Enterprise and Executive Dean at UCS said: “We are delighted to have received this grant which will fund additional provision to help individuals and businesses ‘fight back’ during the recession and support UCS and our key collaborators to pursue our aim of contributing to regional regeneration and growth.”