Stimulating Enterprise
We take a three-step approach to enterprise. Firstly, we are a leading centre for research and teaching in entrepreneurship. Secondly, we have a dedicated unit that actively builds business and industry networks for the University. This means that, thirdly, your postgraduate studies will have a level of engagement with private enterprise that no other university can match.
Research and Enterprise Support
If companies are to compete in the massively competitive global environment, they need people who are equipped with enterprise skills and experience in addition to postgraduate academic qualifications.
In Research and Enterprise Support (RES), we look after the whole spectrum of the University’s engagement with external funding sources (such as businesses and research councils) so that Surrey’s academic expertise can make the biggest possible difference to the world. Our role is to facilitate contacts, to promote links with industry and to look for opportunities to attract more funding in the future. Increasingly, it also involves supporting our students and academics as they build their enterprise skills.
But it’s not about learning enterprise as a theory – it’s about actually being enterprising. Forming companies. Setting up commercial projects. Working with seasoned entrepreneurs. Raising – and making – money.
Take our Doctoral Training Centres. These are absolutely fantastic examples of the best. Best academically, and best in terms of engagement with business. Government and industry are encouraging universities to start providing that kind of platform, but we are already doing it.
We’re years ahead in our thinking there. But then the University of Surrey has always been, from its inception, an institution for enterprise.
Centre for Advanced Research in Entrepreneurship
As well as being the most naturally enterprising university around, we’re also leaders in entrepreneurial research impact.
We recently opened the Centre for Advanced Research in Entrepreneurship (CARE) to bring our internationally recognised experts together in a group that will shape debate and policy, and ultimately help more people to put their business ideas into practice.
CARE is working closely with the University owned Surrey Research Park – a tremendous success story in its own right – as well as providing a unique environment in which PhD and DBA students can carry out their research. CARE is also a useful resource for students on our groundbreaking MSc Entrepreneurship programme.
Through CARE, we provide an unbeatable platform for collaborative research while forging even closer links between the Surrey Business School and the thriving business communities in our region and in the nearby City of London.
It’s yet another way of harnessing our world-class research ability and enterprise expertise to actively make a difference to people’s lives.
Surrey Research Park
The Surrey Research Park supports companies involved in the commercialisation of a wide range of sciences, including social science, technologies, health-related activities and engineering. It is widely regarded as one of the best science parks in the United Kingdom, and is one of only a few to still be owned and operated by the university that founded it.
The 70-acre park provides a high-quality lakeside environment for over 110 companies engaged in a broad spectrum of research, development and design activities, fostering close collaboration with the University and providing commercial opportunities for academics and students.