News / University of Bristol

‘How can we work with well established community groups to help them in their missions?’

By Milan Perera  Tuesday Nov 5, 2024

“Actually I haven’t checked if anyone has unfollowed me since the announcement,” professor Brian Squire, the new dean at the University of Bristol Business School, said with a smile.

He was referring to a LinkedIn post he made when he was appointed to the deanship earlier this year where he said: “Now is a good time to unfollow me if you don’t want to hear about exciting job opportunities, my brilliant colleagues or our amazing students.”

Bristol24/7 went to meet him just hours after taking up his new job. After walking through a labyrinth of construction work on a grey and overcast morning we met with the optimistic professor Squire at Bristol Digital Futures Institute, overlooking the new Temple Quarter Enterprise campus.

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The campus will be home to part of the Business School alongside its other premises in Clifton. Squire welcomed the University’s decision to build a “once in a lifetime” centre of learning and research in an area not always associated with progress in recent decades.

Squire welcomed the University’s decision to build a “once in a lifetime” centre of learning and research at Temple Quarter campus – photo: Milan Perera

 

But the fact remains that the Temple Island is a testament to Bristol’s enduring enterprising and industrial history. Squire believes that the move aligns with the Business School’s mission to engage with the city.

He said: “TQ (Temple Quarter) moves us to a very different part of the city, which is great. And connects us with lots of professional service firms locally who we work with already and will continue to build relationships with, but also a different demographic in this part of the city.”

Squire dismissed any didactic “saviour-complex” ambitions. Community groups in the city already know what is required. The Business School’s role is to be a stakeholder and provide tools and guidance to realise those goals.

He said: “We don’t want to sort of land here and say, ‘Oh, we think you need this, this and this’. We want to say, ‘Okay, you’ve got these local community groups. They’re well established, they’re well recognised. They’re well respected. How can we work with you in certain ways to further your missions?’”

Shortly into our conversation, we were joined by two of his colleagues at the Business School, Dr Lucy McCarthy and Dr Phil Walker-Davies.

Picking up where professor Squire left, Dr McCarthy pointed out that the Business School already has “boots on the ground” to provide research-driven bespoke guidance.

Dr McCarthy is an associate professor at the Business School’s School of Management whose work focuses on food supply chains.

Professor Squire and his colleagues Dr Phil Walker-Davies (left) and Dr Lucy McCarthy discussed how the Business School could work with the stakeholders of the city to realise their visions – photo: Milan Perera

She said the team plans to “work with what’s already been established” and help as best they can.

She added: “the biggest resource academics have is time to do research, to look into things more deeply. If you’re running a social enterprise, you’re usually pretty stretched.

“Bristol is located in an area where there are so many major farms around it, and…social enterprises, loads of food charities, food hubs, but what they all lack is a security of supply. And a lot of them now are starting to pay for their food as well. So, can we match up that idea that these farmers have produce that they can’t sell, and these few charities have a real need for fresh fruits and vegetables?”

Dr Walker-Davies, senior lecturer in Operations Management (right) elaborated how the academics could join forces with local businesses not just on short term but as a part of the long term business strategy – photo: Milan Perera

Dr Walker-Davies, senior lecturer in Operations Management, joined in: “So, in my research, in terms of impact, we’ve very much followed a similar ethos, which is co-designing our research with these organisations. But…we didn’t want to address their challenges of today. We wanted to address their challenges of five to ten years time, which they don’t have the resources in their organisations to currently look at because they’ve got the immediate day- to-day operations they’re managing.”

A phrase that kept coming up in our conversation was “civic engagement”’. Squire emphasised that the Business School is not a “degree factory” but an active ecosystem of engagement and learning where Bristol has the advantage of being a commercial centre for various sectors.

He wants to foster interdisciplinary collaboration between the Business School, other University faculties and local organisations and businesses in the city.

He explained: “Lifelong learning will be a key part of our strategy going forward. The world is changing so quickly, people will have multiple careers. You will need to top up past your undergraduate or past your masters. And it’s about how we do that in a way which engages the local community, but also engages globally as well.”

Squire emphasised that the Business School is not a “degree factory” but an active ecosystem of engagement and learning where Bristol has the advantage of being a centre of excellence – photo: Milan Perera

He added: “One way is through industry projects. So, for example, our MSc in Business Analytics – the vast majority of their summer projects are with industry, many of whom are local or regionally based, who might have a data set that they don’t know what to do with, or can’t see the value of. So, the teams work with those businesses in that way. And that’s something we want to grow over time as well.”

Main photo: Milan Perera

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