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Every year the External Engagement team at the University of Sussex Business School invites its faculty to apply to their Engagement Facilitation Fund (EFF) scheme, supporting collaborations between academics and external businesses.

The Fund started in 2021 and now in its third year, has successfully funded 15 projects with businesses, charities, non-government organisations (NGO’s) and community groups.

The aim of the EFF scheme is to provide professional and financial support for external engagement projects, linking Business School academics with non-academic organisations. In addition, the scheme promotes knowledge exchange across the School and our community by making conventional academic subjects accessible to a wider audience.

Each project is funded by Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF), and concludes with a short case study evidencing the outcomes, examples of which can now be found on the Engagement Facilitation Fund’s case study pages.

Previous projects have included the Empirical Asset Pricing Meeting (EAPM) with VU Amsterdam, BlackRock, and Dutch National Bank. A podcast series named Banglanomics aiming to simplify economics research for students and non-economists, and an Infographics based project ‘Supporting trans, non-binary, and gender-fluid people at work’.

External Engagament Manager, Marcus Atkinson said:

“Our Engagement Facilitation Fund is designed to not only benefit our academics at the Business School but also our external stakeholders which can be for-profit or not-for-profit organisations, as well as community groups. It allows our academics to apply for financial support to work in partnership with such organisations and share their knowledge to explore or resolve any challenges they may face. For example, they may need input to help develop a 'tool kit’ or a workshop, or develop a new approach to an issue they are dealing with. The fund will then cover the cost of delivering that new knowledge into the organisation.”

If you or your organisation would like to collaborate with one of our Business School academics, please get in contact with Marcus Atkinson from our External Engagement team at business-collaborate@sussex.ac.uk.