Consultancy and Research

Commissions and activities – some examples:

Creative Entrepreneurship

King’s Lynn Creative Hub Feasibility Study, 2019. Client: Borough Council of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk. Greenwell worked with partners, Culture Shift and Hudson’s Architects to deliver this feasibility study. Our role in the consortium included: market research, including survey testing, design, and reporting; consultation event structure and delivery; business modelling; legal structures review and preparing a workable business plan.

Creative Spark programme with Creative Georgia 2018 – 2020.  Clients: British Council and UEA. Greenwell were commissioned to work with Creative Georgia to develop a cultural entrepreneurship development programme, bringing together groups of students in Georgia with cultural organisation leaders in the museum and festivals sectors. The programme included: developing and testing training materials; delivering a one-week bootcamp in Tbilisi; producing a transferable training package for trainers; train the trainer course.

Crafts Council Injection Programme 2012- 2017.  Greenwell provided growth-focused business development workshops, including the ‘Funding Maze’, the ‘Confident Employer’ residential programme and 1-1 mentoring to leading designer-makers.

Student and graduate entrepreneurship

Graduate Enterprise Incubation Environments – a benchmarking review. Client: Norwich Business School. The project included an extensive literature review, stakeholder consultation and identification and in-depth case studies of outstanding initiatives.

The GEIE framework has now been further tested in a national research exercise led by NACUE and the University of Hertfordshire, supported by Lloyds TSB.  The results were presented in September 2011 at the Higher Education in Enterprise policy conference. Universities Minister, David Willetts, was keynote speaker at the event, organised by policy think-tank Reform.

The GEIE framework has evolved as a non-prescriptive planning and development tool.  It is now available to help universities and colleges to:

  • Plan progress towards an enabling environment for entrepreneurial students
  • Monitor progress and keep on track
  • See how you compare to other universities
  • Learn from and contribute to a database of GEIE best practice

Greenwell was also commissioned by the University of Hertfordshire to construct a survey tool for the NACUE National Student & Graduate Enterprise Incubation Survey 2011.

Women’s enterprise

Self-employed women in the time of Covid, 2020. A report commissioned by the Women’s Budget Group to inform the Commission on a Gender-Equal Economy.  See here for a summary and see here for the full report.

Spark & Flourish (2014-2018) Development and delivery of bootcamps and a business club for 200 start-up and early-stage women in Norfolk. Partners: UEA, NatWest, Norwich City Council, Norfolk County Council, BIPC Norfolk.

Commissioned by the DTI and Regional Development Agencies in 2003 to produce the first UK national strategy for women’s enterprise and a well-regarded range of training materials, best practice reports and quality standards to support better services. This contributed to a disproportionate increase in the number of women starting businesses in the UK.

Co- author of new economics foundation publication: ‘Who Benefits? The Difficulties for Women in Making the Transition from Unemployment to Self-Employment’ 2003 (won best paper at ISBE 2003).  Also ‘Bridging the Enterprise Gap’ (on behalf of SBS Phoenix Fund, 2004) and ‘Give Women the Credit’, in Gender & Development, Volume 5, Issue 3 November 1997.  In 2011 we wrote a chapter in the Labour’s Business report Jobs for the Girls: Time for a Progressive Women’s Enterprise Strategy.’

Inclusive entrepreneurship and business support

Open University Entrepreneurship & Innovation Module (2016).  Consultancy contract to review course materials for equality and diversity issues. Appointed as an Associate Lecturer on the module delivery team.

Inclusive Business Support.  Northwest Regional Development Agency 2010.  Capacity building materials, case studies and training for 120 business support providers and policy makers, about Inclusive Business Support for disabled people, Black and Minority ethnic groups, people aged over 50, people living in deprived communities and women.

Inclusive Enterprise & the College.  Half day training developed and delivered to over 70 senior staff at City College Norwich.

Click here for more information about our Inclusive Entrepreneurship training courses.

Development of quality standards, including the Flagship Award (which became a contractual requirement for all start-up business support providers in three English Regions) and the international Women’s Business Centres Quality Standard. Process involved a multi-level stakeholder consultation exercise, including online consultation, several expert groups, 1-1 interviews and focus groups.  The development of the WBC standard gained the support of BIS and the Northwest Regional Development Agency.

Social Enterprise development and impact assessment

Development of the Full Circle Fund (FCF), the UK’s first microcredit programme, based on the Nobel prize-winning Grameen Bank’s principles.  FCF was set-up as an Industrial & Provident Society, with the support of Charity Bank and Nat West and was launched in Norfolk in 1999. It continues to provide peer support circles and sustainable loans to hundreds of women business owners. The FCF model was licensed and successfully extended to operate in diverse communities across the UK, including rural Yorkshire and with disaffected youth in inner city London.

Social and Economic Impact Evaluation Toolkit.  Introduced an extensive social and economic impact evaluation process, including SROI at WEETU (which evidenced a ROI of £5.25 for each £1 invested) and developed this, with the New Economics Foundation, into a social and economic impact assessment toolkit and training programme for Prowess members.

Business mentoring

Women’s Enterprise Mentoring 2008′.  Client: BERR, the Department of Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (now BEIS) 2008.   A major national review of business mentoring provision for women in England.  The report comprised an overview and survey of national and regional services, stakeholder perspectives and potential support for a national women’s enterprise mentoring network.  It also summarised good practice from existing services, international examples and past experience.

Student Enterprise Mentoring programme. Client: University of East Anglia (UEA).  We set-up and managed the mentoring training programme for participants in UEA’s Eureka business plan competition. The programme recruited and supported mentors from the local business community to help students develop their business ideas.