What is the project about and how is it funded?

Our project is funded by Enterprise Educators UK who have commended us on the multidisciplinary nature of the project and iterative testing of our concept based on our core belief of co-design and co-creation. We simply love involving everybody and anybody as we believe in diversity of voice in creating meaningful learning journeys.  

The core of our project draws on the connection between placed-based approach to enterprise and design recognised as the route to productivity and intentional innovation resulting in more resilient economy. The project addresses the diversity of the meaning of enterprise and puts emphasis on students’ employability skills including a self-belief that starting a business is a viable career choice and encouraging students to identify their own ‘place’ in identifying entrepreneurial solutions. 

So in a nutshell, we are going to have a lot of fun and come up with a big bank digital resource that students and staff will enjoy as a journey of discovery, curiosity, creativity and most importantly greater sense of belonging and responsibility towards our surroundings.   

Where are we with it?  

Well, we have been working undercover on a series of small iterations that in truth started as vague ideas, boring word documents, clunky digital spaces and eventually our first prototype of a self-guided Digital Design Lab piloted by twelve postgraduate students. This stage of the project has been focused on innovating our Campus and the wicked challenge was:  

How might we create supportive University community connections in the post-pandemic world whilst keeping everybody on Campus safe, comfortable and happy? 

Has it worked?  

Oh yes! How do we know? All students completed the challenge, the quality of their work was exceptional, the smiles on their faces said it all. So what did the students say about their digital experience? 

“Study could be fun and you would never know you learn so much when it’s fun!” 

“Because its fun you are enjoying it and you are motivated to learn more. You are eager to dive deeper. Study should be like this!” 

“It took my fear of perfection away. I felt freed up to have a go!” 

“It was fun and enjoyable and prepared me well for my studies.” 

We nailed it! It was hard work and we are still not perfectly happy with it so we are having another go, making some really cool improvements.  

Things that need our attention are: 

• Helping students unlock their creative potential – most students said they got stuck at the sketching stage so we need to figure out how to take that fear away and make it more accessible  
• Making our materials more localised – in our prototype we drew on publicly available materials like YouTube videos, templates etc. – we have loads of Lancaster based talent we want to integrate in our digital space. This is going to be really exciting!  
• Lastly – keep it light and fun, but don’t take all the challenging aspects away – we learn when things are enjoyable but challenging enough – let’s strike the balance right 😉 

Next steps? 

We are ready to steam ahead, refine out first prototype and get on with our next exciting stage. Follow our blog to keep up with our progress. We sure will have some downs and we may need your help so stay right here!