Summary of the impact

This international research project, based on the work of a consortium of five European countries led by the University of Salford in the area of Enterprise Cultural Heritage (ECH), (the term describing an organisation's history and its creations that have the potential to uniquely innovate and differentiate their products and services), demonstrates the following impact:

• Developing and integrating the ECH training concept in Change Management, Brand Management, Heritage Management and Intellectual Property Rights training material in five languages;
• Developing online training material under Creative Commons Attribution License for free use and re-distribution available through social media such as SlideShare and Wikipedia, accessed c.30,000 times;
• Generating economic and social benefits internationally and leading to a transfer project in the Leonardo da Vinci Development of Innovation scheme entitled Quality & Innovation in Vocational Training for Enterprise Cultural Heritage management.

Summary of the impact

Impacts include:

1. Providing tools, processes, events by which SMEs can engage with universities
2. Allowing SMEs and universities to jointly create technology roadmaps and engage in knowledge transfer
3. Encouraging SMEs to become involved in R&D projects by providing tools to National Contact Points (NCPs).

Through repeat-funded projects, Business and Information Systems Research Centre (BISC) has developed strong European collaborations with Research Technology Developers (RTDs), SMEs and public body partners. Funded projects have addressed European R&D dissemination and use in health-based SMEs; knowledge transfer in the environmental sector; and knowledge transfer in manufacturing.

Summary of the impact

Research by University of Huddersfield Business School has delivered regional and national impact in the field of entrepreneurship and enterprise. It has informed the award-winning delivery of business start-up and growth support programmes across Yorkshire and the Humber, contributing to the regional economy through additional business and job creation. It has helped to shape policy on national entrepreneurship and enterprise education for undergraduates, graduates and postgraduate research students. It has also influenced policy and guidance in the areas of enterprise and entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurship support and social enterprise across the UK through researchers' involvement with national incubation, education and research-based organisations.

Summary of the impact

Research by Professor Richard Thorpe from 2003 to 2010 at Leeds University Business School (LUBS) on management learning and leadership in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has impacted three groups: (i) business education providers (universities, colleges and training organisations), who have used the research to improve the training and education they provide for SMEs; (ii) SME owner-mangers, who have been exposed to the research when attending business programmes, which has enabled them to build on their entrepreneurial behaviour and improve their strategic planning; (iii) government, regional and sector policymakers, who have used the research in policies designed to generate growth in SMEs.

Summary of the impact

This case study refers to the work in supporting SMEs' e-business adoption undertaken by staff in the Business and Information Systems Research Centre (BISC) led by Professor Duan. Our research was supported by a number of EU funded projects, including VEGNET (knowledge transfer in e-supply chains), TRIMAR (e-marketing for SMEs), TRICTSME (e-commerce in SMEs), LFEC (Languages for e-commerce), Webstep (Business website design for SMEs), amongst others. SMEs are the principal beneficiaries of all these projects, with our research impacts on SMEs including:

• An increased level of e-business adoption in SMEs
• Improved e-business performance and management capacity at regional and international level
• Influences on policy making, raised awareness and debate among business communities and policy makers as regards the sharing of know-how and best practice with international business partners
• Follow-on projects funded by EU to realise the research impact (e.g. three rounds of Webstep project and TRIMAR).

Summary of the impact

Research published by Pugh, Wyld and Tyrrall (2001) was adopted by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) and the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) to provide the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of their lobbying campaign for a sliding scale of excise duty for small breweries (also known as "progressive beer duty"; henceforth, PBD). This campaign led to the introduction of PBD in the 2002 Budget. Subsequent evaluation (Wyld, Pugh and Tyrrall, 2010) established that PBD has helped to generate new businesses (well over 100) and new jobs (at least several hundred) that otherwise would not have been brought into existence.

Summary of the impact

The research of the Centre has had a wide range of impacts including economic, commercial and organisational impacts at the level of individual firms, impacts on public policy at the UK level and impacts on practitioners and professional services at the international level. Featured here are examples of each of these types of impact, including an example of impact being made by the whole team on the Nigerian undergraduate entrepreneurship provision and examples of impacts being made at the level of individual firms through the business incubator, on professional practices in a Scottish context through TalentScotland and on UK government policy through work with the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) by individual team members.

Summary of the impact

The Innovation, Design, Entrepreneurship and Science (IDEAS) programme, worked with 60 `technology focused' small-and-medium sized enterprises to explore how they could be supported to facilitate growth. Workshops conducted at Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus (DSIC) resulted in 55 jobs being created and 10 safeguarded. The programme provided business owners with an understanding of their networks, based on research indicating that business growth can be stimulated by optimising the variety of contacts available to them. The successful application of these concepts, at Daresbury, contributed to the generation of approx. £13.1m of funding for new regional, national and international programmes to support a further 2,900 SMEs.

Summary of the impact

This interdisciplinary research work in the areas of Knowledge Management (KM), e-Business, enterprise systems, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and Supply Chain Management resulted in socio economic impact through improved organisational performance in 90 companies in the North West, resulting in process improvements, enhanced productivity, marketability, increased revenues, employment, reduced costs, enhanced knowledge capital, profitability, and sustainability. This positive regional impact included an ERDF funded project (£1.4m), 5 KTPs (£500,000), an ESRC project, and other bespoke collaborative company projects. This research work in collaboration with industry encompassed a knowledge sharing regional network that included BAE Systems, Daimler, Northwest Aerospace Alliance, APPH Group — BBA Aviation, Hyquip Limited, Alliance Learning Limited, Darts Corner Limited etc.

Summary of the impact

The University of Surrey has developed a set of tools that is enabling us to develop innovative web-based information systems with much lower resources than has formerly been possible.

These tools and techniques are being exploited by a University of Surrey spinout, Rulemotion.

The underlying platform has now been used to develop eight distinct business systems. A key feature of our approach is that it enables the business domain to be modelled in structured natural language (using the Object Management Group (OMG) supported standard SBVR [for Semantics of Business Vocabularies and Rules]). The server side functionality is then generated from the business model. Rulemotion is the first organisation to offer such extensive support of SBVR. This is a key fusion of the Business Analysis (Business Rules) and Information Technology domains — the gulf between these two communities has been an area of tension for the past 30 years.