De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) has been ranked in the top 10 British universities with the most start-ups by students and graduates for the fourth year in a row.
Figures out this week show there were 104 businesses started in the 2022/23 academic year, placing DMU ninth in the national figures released this week by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). The university was also the highest ranked university in the Midlands.
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Underpinning the continued success in developing entrepreneurial students is the newly rebranded DMU Made team, which mentors hundreds of students and graduates each year through a variety of in-person and online events.
DMU Made offers support for the university’s students and graduates who are interested in self-employment, freelancing or learning entrepreneurial skills.
The team is behind various popular programmes and initiatives, including the Pitch2Win annual competition, the Enterprise Placement Year, Self-Employment Catapult, international online Entrepreneurship Summer School and the annual DMU Made Entrepreneurship Awards, for which nominations are now open.
Its DMU Made Creative Industries Programme will return for its third year on Thursday 18 April with a series of workshops for students and recent graduates interested in pursuing freelancing or self-employment opportunities in the performing arts and digital industries.
BBC Radio 1's Calum Leslie, graphic designer James Mobbs, KISS presenter Sam Darlaston will all be leading sessions in this year's programme.
Simon Baines, DMU Made manager, said: “In such a volatile environment for employment, more and more of our students and recent graduates are turning to freelancing, self-employment and developing entrepreneurial skills to secure their futures.
“Our team, DMU Made, is a small but formidable team of three within Careers Team which offers a whole breadth of progammes, events and competitions each year including our International online Summer School, Enterprise Placement Year, graduate Champions Catapult and the DMU Made Creative Industries programme.
“The secret to our success is offering so many different access points to entrepreneurship through a multitude of projects and activities to suit all needs. This result is a testament to all the students and graduates who engage with us and to our friends and colleagues internally and external to the university who support our work.
“For more than 100 students and recent graduates to have launched a new business is incredible and we will celebrate this result at our annual awards event in November.”
The figures also include businesses launched through The Crucible, DMU’s business support programme open to graduates and alumni based in the Innovation Centre. It takes a small cohort of applicants through a free year-long programme of support led by mentors from the business world, office space, makers’ space, and one-to-one coaching.
Posted on Friday 5 April 2024