Developing your business

Short-term support

Our range of business support programmes are focused on helping SMEs in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire grow and innovate. These offer fully-funded or part-funded support such as training and development, student and graduate talent, research expertise, and cutting-edge technology.

You can also attend our free events, including public lectures, masterclasses, and networking events like the Festival of Marketing, Logistics and Supply Chain Week and the Sustainability Conference. Check our business events page to see forthcoming opportunities.

If you’re looking for fresh thinking, we have a large talent pool of students and recent graduates you can tap into. You could set our students a ‘real-world project’ and ask them to come up with a solution to a current problem faced by your business. Alternatively, you could take on a student placement or an intern. This can be a very cost-effective way to resource your smaller-scale projects, events, research or market testing.

If you need access to affordable prototyping and testing equipment, our new iLabs scheme could help.

Longer-term support

Develop your workforce and invest in your people with our portfolio of high-quality, work-related education and training, including apprenticeships and bespoke work-based learning.

We also have researchers and experts that can help propel your business forward through research partnerships. Part-funded knowledge exchange schemes make this solution more affordable, including Knowledge Transfer Partnerships.

Raising your profile

If you are looking for more of a two-way relationship with our University, you could opt to become a mentor or share your knowledge with students in other ways, such as through guest lectures, industry visits, mock interviews and assessment centres, or employability workshops.

You will help students become more prepared for the workplace and you will also raise the profile of your company – both on campus and externally through networking and PR opportunities.

Helping businesses large and small

Watch this 3-minute video to find out more about how the University has been helping businesses of all shapes and sizes to achieve more.