LJMU wins Outstanding University Entrepreneurship Award
These awards, now in their 13th year and widely recognised as the “Oscars of higher education”, shine a spotlight on the exceptional achievements of individuals, teams and institutions.
Our judges said that Liverpool John Moores University had become a “truly entrepreneurial university”, with enterprising spirit supported and encouraged in and outside the curriculum.
Collecting the award at a ceremony in London last night, Head of Student Entrepreneurship, Emma Robinson, commented: “This is a fantastic achievement and great recognition for the work of my team. In today’s competitive marketplace, it is vital we equip our students with the skills and confidence to start and grow a business. As a pioneering modern civic university, meeting employer’s needs is critical in ensuring our students have the best experience and opportunities in employment and can also help drive innovation and economic growth”
The Entrepreneurship Educators Academe, launched in September 2015, helps to create curricula that are demonstrably linked to entrepreneurship. This unit has created numerous partnerships with business, civic organisations and charities – and entrepreneurship is now embedded in many degree programmes.
Under a “train the trainers” scheme, staff already coached in entrepreneurship mentor junior colleagues; some 600 educators have already benefited in the two years since the initiative began. The Entrepreneurship Educators Academe scheme was at the heart of the university’s vision, and it has helped to create a “peer support community that has significantly increased the number of university educators actively using an enterprise education pedagogical approach”, our judges said.
In addition, they also commended the university’s new Bathgate Startup Fund to support student enterprise, which has already accounted for 23 new ventures with an estimated turnover of £350,000 in its first year of operation.
This year’s ceremony took place in London, and more than 1,100 guests – including the great and good of the higher education sector, as well as shortlisted entrants from institutions across the UK – gathered to celebrate the extraordinary talent, creativity and resourcefulness of our universities.
Winners were chosen by a distinguished panel of judges, from hundreds of entries submitted by universities from all corners of the UK.
THE editor John Gill said:
"At a time when discussion about universities is too often reduced to terms of economic impact and output alone, the stories behind the winning entries this year tell a far richer story.
Universities remain crucial to the health and well-being of the country, as well as to its prosperity, and anyone who doubts that – or who thinks that excellence is the preserve of one segment of our system – need only read about our winners to see the evidence with their own eyes.”
The full list of this year’s winners is below, and profiles of the winning entries can be viewed here.
Business School of the Year - Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Excellence and Innovation in the Arts - University of Brighton
International Collaboration of the Year - Cardiff University, in collaboration with the University of Namibia
International Impact Award - The Open University
Most Improved Student Experience - Staffordshire University
Most Innovative Contribution to Business-University Collaboration - Ryder Architecture, in collaboration with Northumbria University
Most Innovative Teacher of the Year - Russell Crawford, Keele University
Outstanding Contribution to Leadership Development - University of Glasgow
Outstanding Contribution to the Local Community - Cardiff University
Outstanding Research Supervisor of the Year - Matthew Inglis, Loughborough University
Outstanding Support for Students - University of Kent
Outstanding University Entrepreneurship Award - Liverpool John Moores University
Research Project of the Year: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences - University of London
Research Project of the Year: STEM - Heriot-Watt University on behalf of the Edinburgh Super-Resolution Imaging Consortium
Technological Innovation of the Year - Loughborough University
THE DataPoints Merit Award - University of Leicester
The Lord Dearing Lifetime Achievement Award - John Curtice, University of Strathclyde
University of the Year - Nottingham Trent University
Widening Participation or Outreach Initiative of the Year - Kingston University
For more coverage of the awards, including photos from the ceremony, please visit
Details are also online at www.timeshighereducation.com and, of course, the awards will feature in next week’s issue of THE magazine, available from newsagents from 7 December.
