The University has been working closely with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to boost regional economic growth across places, businesses and communities, as well as through partnerships offering training and knowledge exchange opportunities.  

The skills of Canterbury Christ Church graduates will also have an important role to play in the future success of businesses and sectors during the Covid-19 recovery process. 

Through partnerships with businesses, charities and local government, universities across the UK are predicted to train thousands of key workers, be involved in regeneration projects worth billions to local economies and help create thousands of new businesses and jobs.  

The University is also investing significantly to support local STEM businesses through the Kent and Medway Engineering, Design, Growth and Enterprise (EDGE) Hub, with the aim to fill the engineering and technology skills gap, increase diversity in the workforce and support a more dynamic and responsive industry/university knowledge exchange model. 

How we’re helping:  

INNOVATION 

The Growing Regional Innovation by Design (GRID) Conference held this month, offered the opportunity for small, medium, and micro-businesses to access information on support, funding, and skills to develop innovation potential. The event experts from across the region to support SME businesses in developing their innovation potential through four key innovation pillars: Digitalisation, Decarbonisation, Advanced Manufacturing, Strategic Leadership.   

CONSULTANCY 

Dr Amanda Carr, Director of Business Development in the School of Psychology and Life Sciences, completed a consultancy project for a wellbeing company called TRE UK that, like many businesses during the Covid 19 pandemic, underwent changes to ensure they could continue to run the programme virtually.  

Amanda provided an evidence-based evaluation of the TRE UK programme, analysing pre and post-programme data to produce a report and presentation for the company. As a result of this work proving the programme’s efficacy, more organisations are reaching out to work with TRE UK 

Tre UK’s CEO, Caroline Purvey, said: “The project has definitely raised the credibility of the work we do. More organisations are connecting with us and those we do connect with are delighted to be able to read the report. It does lead to the opportunity to connect with collaboration partners to enable larger studies.” 

The success of the project has led to further discussions on collaborating on a more comprehensive study of different populations in the future.  

 

CREATIVE ARTS FOR HEALTH  

Musical Walkabout is a community interest company which provides inclusive music services for people living with dementia, people in caregiving roles and health and social care staff. 

Dr Ann Skingley, Principal Research Fellow at our Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health has been involved with Musical Walkabout for a number of years.  

Dr Skingley is engaged in the company’s THRIVE project, undertaking consultancy work to provide clinical and academic perspectives that inform the work of the organisation as well as its scope. She was asked to advise on evaluation measures that can be used at before the programme starts and completion through a series of monitoring meetings plus oversight of data analysis.  

Nina Clark, founder of Musical Walkabout CIC, spoke highly of Christ Church expertise. She said: ‘professional, accountable and reliable and having access to professionals of such skill, compassion and expertise is a rare treasure.’