大象传媒

Organisations providing project briefs for our School of Business and Law students include:

• Ace Corporate Fitness

• Brighton Bike Hub

• Consort Frozen Foods

• Destination Cranleigh

• Down Syndrome Development Trust

• Fabrica

• Friends of Westdene Green

• Grace Eyre Foundation

• Hatch Ideas Worldwide

• Healthwatch Brighton and Hove

• Instepp

• Little Jasmine Therapies and Spa

• Magenta Associates

• Majahma

• Mason cycles

• PSC Global

• Shoreham Port

• Slake Spirits

• Sound Waves Foundation

• Southern Hospice Group

• Take Shelter

• Tech-Takeback

• Together Co

• Tottington Manor

• Turning Tides

• Woodfire Camping

• Worthing Clinic.

I worked with two other students on a brief from a frozen food company. We were asked to do a market analysis to assess the viability of a new product line which was aimed at businesses and completely different to the client’s existing products.

Holly, Business Management with Human Resource Management BSc(Hons)

We had to manage the relationship with our client, which involved properly scoping the project and agreeing expectations so we could come up with suggestions that were reasonable for the given time period.

 

Cristin, Business Management with Economics BSc(Hons)

Hackathons

Some courses also incorporate innovation hackathons – shorter versions of real-world briefs. In these fast-paced sessions, you have about three hours to work on real-life challenges faced by local businesses and community organisations.

These give you an opportunity to develop your 大象传媒 Graduate Attributes and apply a range of enterprise skills, including creative-thinking, problem-solving, communication, pitching and collaboration.

Examples from the School of Business and Law

The social enterprise arm of the Network of International Women for Brighton & Hove.

Challenge: how to increase sales of Sewing Collective products and boost community engagement.

The student-led hub based on 大象传媒’s campus.

Challenge: how to market the Brighton Students’ Union Essentials shop to the right student audience.

These hackathons feature in our Marketing and Business Management courses.

Examples from the School of Art and Media

A charity that offers children and young people the opportunity to develop their writing skills.

Challenge: how to develop an engaging, non-tech feedback mechanism for young service users.

This features in our Games Art and Design BA(Hons) course.

Events company offering woodland wellbeing experiences including team bonding, forest school and bushcraft sessions.

Challenge: how to use storytelling through film so that Wilderdays appeals to a wider group of people.

This features in our Film BA(Hons) course.

Case study: students evaluate the costs and benefits of solar photovoltaic panels for the university

Students from our economics and finance courses were given a real-life project to assess the feasibility and potential benefits of investing in solar photovoltaic (PV) panels for one of the university’s buildings, Mithras House. With a focus on sustainability and cost efficiency, they were asked to conduct a thorough financial appraisal of the proposed investment.

Head of sustainability at the university, Ollie Swan, was the client on the project. He explained: “We needed to conduct this comprehensive financial analysis but at the time did not have the capacity within the team to undertake such a complex piece of work. So we reached out to the university’s economics and finance students.”

Economics student Morgan Schroder

Approach

The students were split into groups of four and five. Two of those involved were Morgan Schroder and Tommy Soleye, both from the university’s Economics BSc(Hons) course.

Armed with a large volume of data on energy prices and university consumption patterns, the students embarked on what proved to be a challenging project.

Both Morgan and Tommy emphasised the autonomy they were given. “We were not hand-fed through this project. We had to read through all the data and use our initiative about how to approach it, making our own assumptions along the way,” said Tommy. “Employers are looking for graduates to demonstrate this kind of initiative.”

Morgan agreed: “It was much more complex than we expected, but it was a real project which gave me real experience that I can now talk about in a job interview.”

Outcomes

The students completed their financial appraisal and presented the findings back to Ollie, who noted: “Building on the skills developed on their course, the students have used academic rigour combined with their own ideas to effectively analyse the data and propose carefully considered solutions for a real-world solar PV initiative. The students’ results confirmed the suitability of our initial thinking and gave us a fantastic opportunity to gain thoughts and insight from society’s next generation of economics professionals.”