Step up and celebrate - innovative partnership project sees regional employers work with universities

On 8 December 2021, business owners and employers from the region joined staff and graduates from the universities of Brighton and Sussex to mark the conclusion of an innovative skills partnership project.

The first Step-Up project was developed to bring together graduate interns and regional employers, to give graduates real experience of the benefits of working for an SME business and help businesses to find out how they can benefit from higher-level skills within their business as well as working more widely with universities.

The universities of Brighton and Sussex ran the programme collaboratively over an 18-month period which saw 111 fully-funded internships completed, and a total of 140 businesses participating in skills training events via the program.

Two of the graduates who took part in the project, and are now employed in permanent roles, shared their stories.

Venus Maynard, product design graduate from the University of Brighton, completed her internship at Spark and Bell, a Hove-based company that specialises in hand-made lighting. Venus has now been taken on in a permanent role as Workshop Assistant at the company.

Venus said: “working in a professional environment helped me tremendously with my confidence as a maker. I learned many new skills, that were all very different, including how to document everything throughout the process of making recycled plastics into contemporary light fittings.”

Abi Saunders and Venus Maynard, both graduates of the University of Brighton, spoke about their experience of the Step-Up programme and their internships.

Clare Dawson, Head of Employability: "We will be working to find ways to maintain the relationships we have built with SMEs and the great resources we developed for students so that the legacy of Step-Up can continue to support what we do to enhance employability and support regional development."

Abi Saunders, a maths graduate from the University of Brighton completed her internship at Consortium: More Than Marketing, as a Marketing Assistant. She now has a permanent position as Finance Assistant at a Brighton-based finance company.

Abi said: “I’d never been in a professional work setting before, so I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know how to ask for help, for example, If I finished my work, should I ask for some more? And I’d never done telephone communications. The Step-Up programme helped me tremendously, particularly the 'Communicating with Confidence' workshop where we were given scenarios and the opportunity to test ourselves. But the thing that surprised me the most of all, was myself! I thought I was going to make loads of mistakes and get everything wrong, but actually, everyone was so friendly that I could easily ask questions - everyone helped me, and I got on fine. And now I have lots of new skills that I can use.”

The Step-Up project was co-funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) and aimed to place university graduates into internships, which would ultimately result in jobs with local SMEs to counter the ‘brain drain’ of graduates who want to stay and build careers in the area. Participating businesses attended a masterclass that focused on successful graduate recruitment and how to work with universities for maximum impact on the business. Results from the programme indicate a 52% increase in understanding of how to work with local universities and a 43% increase in understanding of how to create a graduate internship opportunity among participating SME businesses.

Graduates attended five workshops as part of a training programme prior to their internship. Results from the Student Employability Programme yielded a 52% increase in awareness of SME businesses among participating students and a 44% increase in commercial awareness.

If you have any questions about how you might be able to work with the university, please contact our Enterprise Team at enterprise@brighton.ac.uk.

The Step-Up project was co-funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) as part of the 2014-2020 European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme in England. Grant Reference: 04S18P02524