Working with business to enhance teaching

In 2010, Brunel was shortlisted for the Times Higher Education Entrepreneurial University of the Year Award, in recognition of its innovative initiatives to encourage enterprising and creative thinking amongst the whole University community. These include strategic business partnerships, inviting leading companies to give guest lectures to our students, and holding major student competitions which are supported by business.

Guest Lectures

Brunel prides itself on preparing our graduates with all the skills and information they need to compete for the jobs they want. We have excellent links with business and we ensure that the latest developments in the commercial world feed into all our courses. As part of this process, we invite colleagues from industry to come and teach on some of our modules. This gives our students an invaluable insight into the real world and makes the courses more enjoyable too.

Our industrial colleagues bring the knowledge of day-to-day commercial practice to bear on the subject they are teaching. They help students to see how the theory learned from lectures and reading, and the experience developed from completing coursework, is applied in practice. This enhances, and contextualises the academic work, and helps students to prepare for the workplace.

A selection of some of our guest companies

British Airport Authorities (BAA)
Clinisys
Jaguar Land Rover
Pitney Bowes
Royal Bank of Scotland
Fitch Ratings
Paradigm Risk Limited

IBM UK Universities Business Challenge

Teams of our students take part in the IBM UK Universities Business Challenge each year.

The Universities Business Challenge is the premier business simulation competition for all university undergraduates in the UK who want to develop their employability competencies, meet potential employers – and have a life-changing experience. The UBC is a true learning experience for all those who enter.

This competition clearly demonstrates the quality of Brunel Students as our teams traditionally do very well against stiff competition.

Made in Brunel

We hold an annual ‘Made in Brunel – Software Innovation’ event. This is an opportunity for students to display and demonstrate their Group Project prototypes.

This event gives students a real a sense of achievement and the Group Project work can help them to secure placements with employers.

Such events allow us to develop our relationships with companies, but also provide us with a mechanism to stretch our students and improve the innovative nature and quality of their work.