Graduate Business Start-ups Project Report - The Institute for ...

and opinion formers. The Guide utilised information gathered
from the interviews and surveys, on the skills identified as
needed by graduates who wanted to start their own business or
go into self-employment, matching these against the provision of
business and enterprise support throughout higher education.
In practice, there were difficulties during this stage of the
project, throwing into relief some of the problems which arise
from working in a research partnership. More particularly, there
were difficulties relating to the timing of delivery and the quality
of output. A number of possible reasons could explain some of
these difficulties, although two stood out clearly. First, it was
undoubtedly the case that the Steering Group focused more of its
attention on the main research and the production of the
research report. As a result, less attention was given to the
development of the Guide, particularly within the (short)
timescale available. Secondly, compared with the main research,
the specification for the Guide did not spell out in detail what
was expected, in terms of phasing of the work and quality of
output. Thirdly, and arising mainly from the two preceding
factors, there appeared to be a misunderstanding on the part of
the partners, of what was required and the amount of work
(man-hours) that this phase of the project demanded.
Consequently, it was not possible for the partners to carry out
the Delphi exercise to the extent that would have elicited a wider
range of views and current practice. This, in turn, meant that the
Guide reflected mostly the partners’ views of limited practice
only.
A draft of Good Practice has now been completed. The results
will form a Working Paper which will be made available to all
HE career services, AgCAS and other stakeholders for more
exhaustive comment. The Good Practice Guide is appended to
this report as Annex 1.
Among the lessons to be learned from this experience is that
successful partnership arrangements require clearly stated
objectives and outputs, and how these are to be achieved. It is
important that project teams, and for that matter steering groups
as well, anticipate the difficulties that are likely to arise from all
aspects of a project, including the ‘minor’ outputs. This is
particularly so where project partners have limited research
experience.
Collaboration and networking
At an early stage of the project, the project team established
contact with other researchers studying the role of TECs and
their partners in supporting graduate enterprise. This
collaboration was helpful, and enabled the project team to
identify, for inclusion in the exploratory interviews,
representatives of TEC-sponsored initiatives aimed at graduates.
This was one aspect of a more formal network (set up by the
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