Graduate entrepreneurs: just what the doctor ordered

Few items of clothing are as undignified as the hospital gown. The flimsy piece of fabric leaves little to the imagination and can quite literally add insult to injury. So Fatima Ba- Alawi’s business idea to develop a new patient-friendly design was always going to be a winner.

Like a growing number of entrepreneurs, she came up with her idea when she was at university. “I worked at a hospital to help pay my way through my degree in business administration,” she says. “I noticed just how horrid the gown was and I took one and changed it. Later, I happened to notice an enterprise challenge competition at university and entered my idea and won. The competition, which Ba-Alawi now helps judge, won her enough money to get some prototypes together and protect her idea.

A further grant from Portsmouth University, where she studied, enabled her to trial the product and three years on, she’s selling the gown not only in the UK, but overseas, including in Canada and Malaysia. Ba- Alawi has since developed a further six patient gowns – one which is impregnated with an anti-MRSA agent – as well as a range of maternity wear. Her company DCS Designs, which stands for dignity, comfort and safety, is going from strength to strength. Such a story would raise no eyebrows in the States – where around 30 per cent of the economy is driven by businesses set up by graduates – but in the UK, graduate entrepreneurship is only just being seen as anything other than exceptional.

In fact, so appalled was Gordon Brown, in his days of chancellorship, that the figure here was nearer 8 per cent, that he decided to do something about it and the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE) was born. The idea was to get more graduates starting up businesses– an aim that Brown, since becoming Prime Minister, has backed up with Government policies including the Enterprise Strategy and the Innovation National White Paper. They’re clearly making progress – NCGE research shows that 70 per cent of the UK’s top 200 fastest growing businesses were founded by graduates.

Getting British universities to produce more entrepreneurs isn’t just a feelgood exercise for young people. It has, quite simply, never been more important to our future, particularly with today’s economic slowdown. “There are four key reasons to embed entrepreneurship in higher education,” says Ian Robertson, chief executive of the NCGE. “First, it benefits UK competitiveness. Second, entrepreneurialism brings greater social cohesion.

Third, the greatest potential for innovation, business creation and economic growth is found in UK universities, so why waste it? Finally, from 2010 there will be a steady decline in 18-yearolds going to university, so higher education must address the needs of the newer cohort.” It’s not that anyone is expecting every graduate to start up a business as soon as they leave university.

“It may be five to 10 years after doing their degree before some people finally feel ready,” says Mark Evans, associate dean of Coventry University’s art and design school.

“There’s still this feeling about graduate entrepreneurship that it’s a case of ‘now or never’ and once a few years have passed, it’s too late – which just isn’t true. The key thing is that university becomes a place where they gain the skills to do it when they feel the time is right. Others may decide to use their entrepreneurial skills not to start up a business but as an employee. After all, growing numbers of employers recognise the benefit of entrepreneurial skills among their workers – things such as being creative, being able to negotiate and network, and understanding how businesses work financially.”

There’s even a word for it – “intrepreneurship”, defined as acting in an entrepreneurial way within an existing business. Other neologisms have sprung up in the field. Evans points to the “mumpreneurs” – the mums who have found business opportunities from home. “The vocabulary reflects this emerging economy of people acting entrepreneurially in all sorts of ways that aren’t traditional Dragons’ Den style start-ups – but who still bring enormous benefit both to themselves and to the wider economy.”

To this end, Coventry University is among a fast growing number attempting to embed enterprise and entrepreneurship within all its courses. “For the past 10 years, many higher education institutions have had bolt-on programmes where students can opt to take modules that will provide them with these skills. But while that’s clearly important, entrepreneurship needs to be entrenched more deeply,” says Evans.

If you’re wondering how, say, anthropology or theology degrees can embed entrepreneurship, Paul Hannon’s your man. As NCGE director of research and education, he has no shortage of ideas for the most unlikely courses. “One university got theology students to do faith walks around the city, while others acted as consultancies to organisations on how to deal with issues that arise from faith,” he says. “There is absolutely no argument for a department head to say, ‘Sorry, enterprise isn’t relevant to our subject’.”

Hannon says that the NCGE’s recent mapping work shows that nearly every university is now doing something around entrepreneurship. “That’s a fantastic place to be if you compare it with a decade ago, when probably only half a dozen universities were seriously engaged with it.” In fact, he is cynical of those who hold up America as the ideal. “Yes, there’s brilliant stuff happening there. I think part of that is because they don’t have the fear of failure that we do over here. Also, because fewer universities over there rely on public funding, the whole culture of universities tends to be more entrepreneurial. But I really don’t think there is as big a gap between the two countries as there used to be. I took 12 of our NCGE educators over to the States last month and visited the Kauffman Foundation and three universities they support. We felt there is significant leadership shown there in the way entrepreneurship is embedded, and remarkable similarities from which we can both learn.”

That’s not to say the UK can afford to rest on its laurels, says Hannon. “Our focus in the next few years needs to be on creating a more level playing field. In a few years, we want to be in a situation where it doesn’t matter what subject you decide to study or where you decide to study it – you should expect the same access to learning around entrepreneurship.”

NCGE also helps graduates directly via the Flying Start initiative. This not only has an online portal, where people can get expert help and resources, but it also runs two programmes – a 12- month business readiness programme and a 12- month international venture. Most popular of all is Flying Start’s series of one day rallies, which are free, practical six-hour inductions run by experts and held in collaboration with universities and regional development agencies.

“They focus on practical support and networking, informing students interested in starting their own business about what they need to do to get started,” says Lorna Collins, who heads it up. These motivational events attract some 400students each time and help to break down some myths, says Collins. “One big myth is that there’s a proper, set way of starting a business. Another is that you need a lot of money or that there’s no money available for graduate start-ups.”

Fatima Ba-Alawi says Flying Start opened countless doors. “Before I participated, I had a definite idea for my business and had trialled my gown design in a few hospitals with positive results. But Flying Start helped me take the next steps to become a trading business. I learned how to apply for a patent, how to develop important business contacts and find additional sources of funding.”

Britain has the fifth largest economy in the world and among the lowest barriers to entrepreneurship and yet we rank only 10th in terms of global competitiveness, 17th for human capital and 18th for GDP per capita. Universities, says the NCGE, are in a unique position to help create a new generation of entrepreneurs such as Ba-Alawi so that these figures start to look very different.

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