On the 7 September University of Westminster took home the awards for Enterprise Catalyst, Inclusive Enterprise Education and People’s Choice at this year’s National Enterprise Educator Awards. These awards reflect their work engaging alumni networks to demystify enterprise for underrepresented students and recent graduates.
This recognition is a result of successful collaborations across the Business Engagement Directorate between the WeNetwork and Alumni Relations teams who have made enterprise accessible to the whole Westminster community. The activities undertaken include enterprise-focused What It Takes events and mentoring programmes, alumni business support and alumni-funding for enterprise programmes.
The National Enterprise Educator Awards recognise outstanding achievements in the world of enterprise and entrepreneurship education in the UK and celebrate those who have gone above and beyond to support students and graduates.
Winning these three Awards reflects the commitment Westminster has to create an inclusive enterprise network. Westminster is constantly striving to provide students and graduates with new and exciting entrepreneurial opportunities. One way the University does this is through the Westminster Enterprise Network (WeNetwork) which brings students and recent graduates together with industry to develop their entrepreneurial skills, engage in self-employment work and create businesses. WeNetwork connects students with the world of work to solve real-world problems and widen participation in entrepreneurship.
One of WeNetwork’s key objectives for the last academic year was to reach more than 3,000 students and alumni users. To do this they launched new and inclusive activities, including Live Briefs, bursaries for those participating in start-ups or freelance programmes as well as the Elevate business support programme, a six-month long initiative that supports alumni business founders from underrepresented communities.
The WeNetwork and Alumni Relations team also came together to make enterprise accessible to students who might feel excluded by contemporary representations of entrepreneurship. They created a single network of alumni entrepreneurs and freelancers who act as “accessible” role models for students.
The University’s What it Takes events have also been a huge success, with an array of exciting and innovative alumni speakers coming in to share their experience and advice on a diverse range of topics, focusing on employability and personal and professional development. Feedback from the events showed 92% of attendees felt better placed to succeed in business and 98% confirmed the value of hearing this from an alumnus.
Enterprise Mentoring is also a crucial programme, with alumni mentors supporting students to develop viable digital business concepts. This initiative engages hard to reach students by building three group mentoring sessions into timetabled teaching.
These groundbreaking initiatives enabled WeNetwork to grow student engagement in extracurricular enterprise activities, especially among students from disadvantaged groups.
The University of Westminster is one of the most diverse communities in the world, with 19,000 students from 169 nationalities. Of the students 58% have BME backgrounds and 30% are from areas ranked the most deprived in the UK.
The winners of each category were announced at the IEEC2023 Gala Dinner on 7 September 2023.
Linsey Cole, Director of Business Engagement at the University of Westminster, said: “We are delighted to have been successful in all three of the categories we were shortlisted in for our work to demystify enterprise. This reflects the University’s commitment to supporting all our students to develop the enterprise and entrepreneurship skills they need to succeed on graduation. Our entrepreneurial alumni and supporters are a central part of this work, sharing their experiences, insights and knowledge with the next generation of Westminster entrepreneurs.
“We look forward to building on this further as part of our new centre for enterprise and employability at 29 Marylebone Road, which will provide a focal point for growing this network and scaling delivery, enabling the University to continue to deliver on its strategic commitment to social mobility.”
Find out more about Westminster’s WeNetwork.
