DCU wins Excellence in Entrepreneurship Education Award at inaugural Small Business Charter Excellence Awards

Dublin City University Business School (DCU) has been recognised at the first-ever Small Business Charter Excellence Awards. The school won the category ‘Outstanding Support for Student Enterprise and Entrepreneurship’ for its ground-breaking initiative “Learning Innovation for Enterprise: Supporting the LIFE of an Entrepreneurial Student”.

Dr. Catherine Faherty, Assistant Professor of Enterprise, Prof Teresa Hogan, Professor of Entrepreneurial Finance and DCU Manager of the Small Business Charter, Dr Eric Clinton, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Director of the DCU National Centre for Family Business, and Professor Dominic Elliott, Dean of Dublin City University Business School received the award at the Small Business Charter Summer Reception held on 22 June at the House of Lords. The reception was attended by business leaders, politicians, media, and business schools from across the UK and Ireland.

The LIFE programme was launched in September 2019 as part of DCU Business School’s redesigned first-year curriculum. The programme is based around business in all its forms and entrepreneurship. All first-year DCU Business School students complete the LIFE module and it’s an integral, foundational part of our curriculum.

Students learn the A-Z of business in all its forms through Hackathons, online learning, conference seminars, applied projects, reflective writing, and through hearing directly from businesses. Over the course of one year, students understand and experience entrepreneurship as it applies to multiple business situations, including family businesses, start-ups, and social enterprises, right through to large corporations.

It was noted by the judges that the Learning Innovation for Enterprise programme demonstrated exemplary support for student enterprise and entrepreneurship through LIFE – a capstone enterprise education module taken by all first-year students across eight undergraduate programmes.

The Judges commented: “Skills for life are hard-wired into Dublin City University’s LIFE course and are relevant to the mechanics and mindset of an entrepreneur’s attributes and attitude.  This proves that such skills can be learnt and developed to challenge thinking about opportunities for business.”

Commenting on the award Professor Dominic Elliott, Dean of Dublin City University Business School said: “The team here at the School is really delighted to receive this award and to be recognised for the brilliant LIFE initiative. Our work with the small, medium-sized business community is amongst the most rewarding things that my colleagues, students and I do. Through the Small Business Charter (SBC) we’ve undertaken initiatives that have really stretched the imagination and insight of the students and helped them gain an unparalleled understanding of how businesses operate and the challenges they face. This ‘real-life’ experience sets them up brilliantly for life after university.

“We previously won the European Award for Innovation in Teaching & Learning and it’s great that we can add this award to our cabinet!”

Michael Hayman, Chair of judges, Chair of the Small Business Charter added; “The judges noted the incredible quality of entrants for the inaugural Small Business Charter awards. Today’s winners represent excellence from around the country and exemplify the immense impact of business schools on entrepreneurship and small business growth, productivity, and innovation. Our congratulations go to all five of the recognised schools and we look forward to following the future success of their transformative programmes.”

About the awards

The SBC Excellence Awards have been created to celebrate SBC schools’ own ‘home-grown’ business support initiatives which highlight their own expertise and innovations, working in tandem with the spirit and purpose of the SBC.

There were three categories of awards, representing the three pillars of the holistic SBC assessment:

Outstanding Support for Small Business
Outstanding Stakeholder Engagement
Outstanding Support for Student Enterprise and Entrepreneurship

Over 40 entries were received, with 12 schools’ entries shortlisted as finalists. The panel of six judges, representing senior academics from SBC accredited business schools, SME business leaders and other key stakeholders, made one Excellence Award for each of the three categories and have highly commended two further entries. To maintain impartiality academic judges did not vote for their own schools.

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