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Big House team receives national recognition for stakeholder engagement

Nottingham Business School’s Big House team has been Highly Commended in the Small Business Charter (SBC) Excellence Award for Outstanding Stakeholder Engagement

    The Big House team collecting their award at BMA House in London
    The Big House team collected their award at BMA House in London

    This prestigious accolade from the SBC celebrates the Big House team’s exceptional commitment to supporting, championing, and fostering connections among small businesses, academic communities, influential business networks, and our students and graduates.

    The award ceremony, officiated by Lord Karan Bilimoria and SBC Chair Michael Hayman MBE, featured participation from SBC accredited Business Schools across the UK and Ireland.

    The Big House project has been instrumental in fostering small business growth and collaboration and their journey and achievements are showcased in a video available on YouTube.

    Lynn Oxborrow, Professor of Sustainable Small Business Growth, and Liz Morley, Project Manager for SME Support, proudly represented the Business School at the SBC awards. Both expressed gratitude for the award and the invaluable contributions of stakeholders, represented at the awards by Andrea Huscroft of NBV Enterprise Solutions and Janie Halsall from Nottingham City Council. Their partnership, which also included Derby Quad, University of Derby and the new Art Exchange, Nottingham, has been instrumental in advancing the goals of the Big House project, as highlighted during the award ceremony.

    Liz remarked: "Working in partnership with our extended group of stakeholders enabled the Big House to exceed all expectations. Together we supported 2789 businesses and there are tangible signs of growth across the Creative and Digital Industries."

    The Highly Commended award underscores Nottingham Business School's leadership in small business engagement. As the business landscape continues to evolve, the Business School remains committed to fostering growth and sustainability among local and national small businesses.

    Building on the success of the Big House, the NBS team and its partners have now launched two new projects to support Creative and Digital industry businesses in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. ‘Create Growth Nottingham and Nottinghamshire (CGN2)’ and ‘NTU Amplify Growth’ can support small creative, CreaTech, digital businesses, agencies and cultural organisations through new initiatives supported by the Department for Media, Culture and Sport and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund respectively.

    If you run a small business in Nottingham or Nottinghamshire contact Liz Morley to see how we can help.

    Find out more about business engagement opportunities with Nottingham Business School.

    • Notes for editors

      About Nottingham Business School at Nottingham Trent University

      Nottingham Business School (NBS) at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) is a leader in experiential learning and personalisation of business, management and economics education and research, combining academic excellence with positive impact on people, business and society.  NBS has an unrivalled level of engagement with business, public and voluntary organisations. With more than 8,500 students, NBS is also one of UK’s largest business schools.

      NBS is triple crown accredited by EQUIS, AACSB, and AMBA as well as EFMD BA for International Business, which are globally recognised hallmarks of excellence and quality for business education. NBS is also accredited by Small Business Charter, providing support and development for SMEs. The school is also a PRME Champion and held up as an exemplar and beacon by the United Nations Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME).

      About Nottingham Trent University

      Nottingham Trent University (NTU) received the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education in 2021 for cultural heritage science research. It is the second time that NTU has been bestowed the honour of receiving a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for its research, the first being in 2015 for leading-edge research on the safety and security of global citizens.

      The Research Excellence Framework (2021) classed 83% of NTU’s research activity as either world-leading or internationally excellent. 86% of NTU’s research impact was assessed to be either world-leading or internationally excellent.

      NTU was awarded The Times and The Sunday Times Modern University of the Year 2023 and ranked University of the Year in the Whatuni Student Choice Awards 2023. It was awarded Outstanding Support for Students 2020 (Times Higher Education Awards), University of the Year 2019 (Guardian University Awards, UK Social Mobility Awards), Modern University of the Year 2018 (Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide) and University of the Year 2017 (Times Higher Education Awards).

      NTU is the 5th largest UK institution by student numbers, with approximately 40,000 students and more than 4,400 staff located across five campuses. It has an international student population of 7,000 and an NTU community representing over 160 countries.

      Since 2000, NTU has invested £570 million in tools, technology, buildings and facilities.

      NTU is in the UK’s top 10 for number of applications and ranked first for accepted offers (2021 UCAS UG acceptance data). It is also among the UK’s top five recruiters of students from disadvantaged backgrounds and was the first UK university to sign the Social Mobility Pledge.

      NTU is ranked the second most sustainable university in the world in the 2022 UI Green Metric University World Rankings (out of more than 900 participating universities).

    Published on 3 July 2024
    • Category: Nottingham Business School