Exploring Enterprise

For  the ninth edpisode of ‘Exploring Enterprise’, the podcast series from the Enterprise Research Centre  Professor Stephen Roper, Director at the ERC was  joined by  Dr Anastasia Ri, Research Fellow at the ERC; Mark Swift, Head of the SME Group at the Warwick Manufacturing Group, based at Warwick University; and Darren Joint, Managing Director of Viking Signs Ltd, a digital on-demand sign manufacturing company. The theme for this podcast  is SMEs and the triple transition.

In this episode Mark Hart, Deputy Director of the ERC is  joined by Lucy Armstrong, CEO of The Alchemists – an organisation which works with high growth businesses to accelerate their development;  Robert Wapshott, Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Nottingham University Business School and  Oliver Mallett, Professor of Entrepreneurship at Stirling University  reflecting on some of the key challenges for UK enterprise policy, in the past and in the future.

In the 7th episode of Exploring Enterprise, Stephen Roper, Director of the ERC, is joined by Dr Barbara Tocco, Centre Manager and Senior Research Associate based at Newcastle University, and Professor Tom MacMillan Deputy Director at NICRE based at the Royal Agricultural University in Gloucestershire and Chris Jewitt, Founder and CEO of community interest company Food and Drink North East discussing the UK’s changing food economy and some of the implications and future opportunities for SMEs.

In Episode 6, Stephen Roper is joined by the team from the National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise (or NICRE), to discuss how rural businesses have fared during the COVID-19 pandemic and what the future might hold for them. The participants are Professor Jeremy Phillipson, Director of NICRE based at Newcastle University, Professor Janet Dwyer, NICRE co-Director based at the University of Gloucestershire, and Melanie Thompson-Glenn, NICRE’s Business Development Manager.

In episode 5, ERC Director Professor Stephen Roper is joined by Dr Anastasia Ri, Research Fellow at the ERC; Jonathan Withey, Head of Business Development and Planet Mark; and Catherine Westoby, Senior Policy Adviser, Public Behaviour Change on Net Zero at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to discuss SMEs and the Net Zero challenge.

In this episode of our podcast series Vicki Belt is joined by Dr Maria Wishart, Research Fellow at the ERC; Dr Carla Toro, Associate Professor Behavioural and Wellbeing Sciences at the University of Warwick; Sean Russell, Co-Investigator of the Mental Health and Productivity Pilot, Coventry University; and Tara Sankar, HR and mental health lead at Tamworth-based SME, Crystal Specialist Finance.

In this episode ERC’s Vicki Belt is joined by Stephen Roper, Director of the ERC,  Jane Galsworthy, Managing Director of Oxford Innovation Services and Alex Toft, Head of Minerva Business Angels to discuss how to support innovative start-up businesses.

Joining us for the second episode of Exploring Enterprise are Colin Bell, Business and Sector Growth Director, North East LEP, and Richard Jeffery, National Director of Growth Company Business to discuss  local growth and ‘levelling up’ , sharing their perspectives on what it means and the main challenges in achieving it in North East England and Manchester.