Is your organisation facing a commercial challenge, or a business issue? Do you want to see what recommendations our students can come up with?
Student Innovation Projects offer students the opportunity to work with an employer on a brief and have a real impact on their business need. Our students have researched and presented recommendations to many companies on diverse topics, such as:
- Enhancing marketing and social media strategies
- Promoting staff diversity and retention
- Adopting eco-friendly practices to reduce carbon footprints
- Improving customer experience
What are Student Innovation Projects?
Student Innovation Projects enable businesses to collaborate with our students, receiving fresh perspectives and inspiring solutions to overcome their challenges:
- Each project will be 4-weeks in length, and take place either in the Autumn or Spring term
- Each project will have 1 or 2 student teams allocated, and the students will come from a range of subjects and year groups
- Students act as consultants on a real-life business issue, conducting research and recommending innovative solutions
- In preparation, students will attend a training session hosted by our Work Experience team prior to the project commencing
Why participate?
- No cost to you
- Enjoy the additional resource to provide dedicated consulting skills to a business issue
- Gain new perspectives on your organisation's issues
- Receive insightful recommendations from students through a final presentation and report
- Be a part of enhancing our students’ employability, which is key to their success as graduates
- Recruitment and training of all students is organised by the University
Our expectations from you
Once the project begins, your involvement will be as follows:
- Have an initial meeting with your student team(s) and provide continued support to them via email, telephone and other meetings as required
- Providing students with the necessary information and resources they will require to complete the project
- Attending the student presentation and final report submission, along with a representative from Careers, Employability and Student Enterprise. The presentation must take place on University grounds between 09:00 and 17:00, Monday to Friday
How to apply
To apply for a Student Innovation Project, you are required to do the following:
- An initial expression of interest, please complete ourÌý
- We will then assess your ideaÌýand ask you to complete a health and safety questionnaire and confirm youÌý Ìý Ìý Ìý hold adequate Public Liability Insurance, or purchase it on the basis that your project is successfulÌý
- You'll then provide a formal project brief for consideration and provide theÌýdetails of at least two contacts within the company
- You'llÌýsign ourÌýclient agreement form to confirm your participation in the programme
- We may need to hold a final Teams meeting or telephone call with you before accepting you on the programme
You can submit applications to employ@southampton.ac.uk. Please note, we accept applications throughout the Autumn and Spring terms.
For further information on Student Innovation Projects, please refer to our Student Innovation Project Employer HandbookÌýand example briefs below from previous company projects:
Contact us
If you would like to discuss our Student Innovation Projects in more detail, please contact us: