Bournemouth University

Engaging with enterprise

We have a strong enterprise culture. Students and staff are working on consultancy projects with a wide range of regional and national clients including IBM, Lufthansa, Sony, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and Price Waterhouse Coopers.

We have a strong track record in bringing innovative consumer products to market through industrial licensing agreements with leading brands and through the formation of spin-out companies. Our annual Festival of Design & Innovation provides businesses with the opportunity to look for the ‘next big thing’ by previewing the work of over 170 innovative design and engineering undergraduates. Our experienced commercialisation team works closely with businesses to develop successful licensing agreements such as the Quickpitch tent, designed by graduate Franziska Conrad.

Franziska showcased her tent at the Festival of Design & Innovation and, with the support of our commercialisation team, it is now manufactured under licence by Gelert. The tent has now sold over 200,000 units and was voted ‘Best Festival Tent’ by The Guardian and ‘Best Festival Product’ by The Gadget Show. Franziska was recently awarded a Fellowship on the prestigious Flying Start Global Entrepreneurs programme run by the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE) and during 2009 completed a six-month internship in the USA at Harvard and MIT.