L-R: Crowne Plaza Hotel, SECC Armadillo and The Hydro with the University in the distance

Building relationships with external partners 

About us

Our aim is to build and develop relationships with external partners to enhance our student experience and support world changing research engagement and impact. 

We want to develop our connections with practice across all parts of our economy, including public, private and the third-sector and engage in scholarship that tackles grand challenges of productivity, sustainability and wellbeing. 

Find out how we can work with you to maximise your organisation’s exposure to our students and academics. 

Engage

Engage with our students

Discover the many ways to work with our emerging talent, including group consultancy projects, individual research and placement opportunities. By engaging with our students, you will contribute to enhancing their student experience and allow them to access expertise beyond the Adam Smith Business School. 

Engagement with the third sector 

Our Entrepreneurial Ventures: Management and Growth (EVMG) course utilises our student expertise to deliver outcomes to our third-sector partners. The course involves engagement with 12 separate organisations, delivering a one-week consultancy ‘ideas spark’ sprint project and a longer six-week engagement activity, taking a deeper dive into an organisational issue.  

As part of the consultancy process, groups of students are mentored by industry professionals to ensure learning is maximised and outcomes for the client are appropriate. In 2021, clients included several Glasgow based charities, as well as social enterprises across the Central Belt and in Dumfries and Galloway. As part of the Business School’s commitment to our third-sector partners, the three best student consultancy projects were taken forward to implementation. The School sponsored three internships for students to work with the chosen partners to implement their findings. 

The financial support via the EVMG course in providing paid internships to start-up and young third-sector organisations has proven valuable and has already served as a model of engagement for other undergraduate courses, with plans to replicate its success elsewhere.

“This process of consultation has been great. It's busy here but the time commitment needed from me has been small and the ideas and suggestions from students have been insightful and helpful” – Dave Hodson Tweedale Youth Action 

Supporting Fintech SMEs 

As part of our MSc Financial Technology programme, students can elect to undertake an ‘industry project’ as part of their dissertation. The industry project involves students engaging with organisations over six weeks to tackle an issue or idea for growth. At the end of the project students deliver an executive summary and a presentation. In 2020, the Business School sent out seven students to local Fintech businesses, and in 2021 that number grew to 18, and in 2022 it will be 32 students. These students deliver knowledge, insights and new ideas to the Fintech ecosystem. 

“Working with the Adam Smith Business School has been a pleasure and we were impressed by the calibre of the students. The work has accelerated our progress towards providing timely and insightful data-dashboards to our client.” – Peter Keys (SOAR tech) 

“The students were highly motivated and engaged to structure and summarise a very complex topic.” – Kevin Cowan X10 Solutions 

Work with our academics

Connect with our highly respected academics and build long term partnerships between our research and the issues that matter to broader society, through consultancy, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP’s), research, policy making and conferences.  

Our academics are among the most highly regarded in the fields of management, business, economics, accounting and finance, with many contributing to public discussions through articles, conferences and media commentary, and influencing contemporary thinking and policy. They also advise governments, regulatory bodies, businesses and organisations through collaboration and consultancy – bringing independent and intelligent perspectives to a wide range of business challenges.  

Consultancy 

We continuously develop consultancy and research-based links with industry and our academics engage with a wide range of businesses and organisations in this capacity. Among those drawing on our research and consultancy expertise are Scottish Government, Scottish Fiscal Commission, HM Treasury, International Monetary Fund, European Commission, and European Central Bank. 

Research 

Our academics have a proven track record for addressing the challenges faced by businesses and organisations from across the sectors. This is through collaborative research, advising and encouraging best practice, and providing access to leading research and knowledge. 

We are recognised worldwide for the depth and breadth of our academic research and the solutions they support are typically innovative, practical and highly effective in bringing about positive change. 

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships 

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) are part government-funded projects that bring together academic experts, graduates and businesses, with the aim of stimulating growth through research and knowledge sharing.  

We have an extensive portfolio of successful KTP projects and are keen to extend our collaborations with businesses. Key benefits of KTPs include: 

  • access to fresh strategic insights 
  • increased profit, knowledge and capability 
  • greater efficiency and competitive edge 
  • improved innovation, competitiveness and productivity 
  • access to exclusive academic expertise. 

We offer an engaging experience at the Adam Smith Business School and harnesses the value of working together across disciplines, cultures, and countries to solve global problems and bring about positive change. 

Discover our research and collaborations

Learn about our ground-breaking research and business collaborations and their enriching influence they have on lives, culture, industry, and society at home and abroad. 

Business Angels – A new age of networking 

Colin Mason, Professor of Entrepreneurship at Adam Smith Business School, has been a pioneer of business angel research since building on exploratory studies of the phenomenon in the USA from the early 1980s. 

Colin’s initial study led the UK Government to establish what were then called Business Introduction Services – now termed Business Angel Networks – which serve as ‘dating agencies’ to link business angels with entrepreneurs. He undertook interim and final evaluations of this initiative with Richard Harrison. 

His research on angel exits, which is funded under the ESRC’s Co-Investment Initiative, looks at the exit process for angel investing. 

Find recent publications, including papers from the angel exits research and investing resilient to Covid in 2021, in Colin’s academic research profile or email business-school-research@glasgow.ac.uk to find out more. 

Glasgow’s Community Gardens – Sustainable communities of care 

A report by Adam Smith Business School’s Professor Andrew Cumbers, Professor Robert McMaster, Professor Deirdre Shaw, and Dr John Crossan, explores the relationships between sustainability, health, well-being and the urban environment through visits to 18 community-based gardens in Glasgow. 

Community gardening is intended to empower communities and ‘offer a learning environment that goes beyond the skills associated with horticulture to include individual health, self and community well-being, and democratic citizenship’. 

The report found that community gardens could help to build stronger communities while providing an environment for developing and adapting skills. Learning about growing food brings together cultures and generations who would otherwise have little meaningful contact with one another, thereby creating positive links between ethnic, political and socio-economic groups. 

The research found that one of the most commonly cited challenges community gardens face relates to issues with lease arrangements, which can cause uncertainty and anxiety among the groups engaged with community projects like this. However, it’s clear from this project, and many others, that working together to transform derelict spaces of land has the potential to reduce neighbourhood crime and antisocial behaviour. Community gardens are increasingly acknowledged as a valuable resource to neighbourhoods across the world. 

The research team comprised members of the Glasgow Food Policy Partnership, and involved close collaboration between Glasgow City Council, Glasgow Local Food Network, the Glasgow Centre for Population Health, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Health Scotland, Soil Association Scotland, Nourish Scotland and Zero Waste Scotland. Beyond a focus on community gardens, these partners have also joined forces to identify and implement a ‘good food for all’ vision for the city. 

Report

Our events

Speak at an event or hear from leading lights in the business community, explore avenues of collaboration with the Business School and gain wider insights through an international audience. 

Our events are specific to the Adam Smith Business School's focus on connecting students and academic staff directly to the wider business world and to its leading professionals and theorists. 

FinTech Forum 

Our FinTech Forum brings together students, staff, alumni, and industry to exchange ideas, share knowledge and create collaboration opportunities in FinTech. Past speakers have included Gopal Hariharan, founder, and CEO of BlackArrow Group; Dr Kaveh Asiaei from Universiti Malaya; Professor Ben Shenglin, and Ms Nicola Anderson, CEO, FinTech Scotland. We format our events into themes:  

  • FinTech Fridays - inspiring and innovative practitioners discuss their industry experiences 
  • FinTech Roundtable – discussion between industry connections and academics on current trends 
  • Academic Insights – invited guests talk about their recent research,  
  • FinTech Ecosystems – discussions around building strong FinTech ecosystems.  

Glasgow Talks 

We have been partners of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce’s Glasgow Talks series with the Clydesdale Bank since 2012. We contribute to create a series of talks with influential speakers from business and politics, who share inspirational stories about their career history and current issues. Past speakers have included Jonatan Hinkles, Chief Executive of Loganair and Dr Rabinder Buttar, Chairman, CEO and Founder of Clintec.  

Get in touch 

If you would like to contribute to our range of talks and business-related events, or present to an international audience of emerging business talent at the Adam Smith Business School, please get in touch:

business-engage@glasgow.ac.uk  

 

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