Businesses

We collaborate with businesses of all sizes and can help you to understand what powerful data you have at your fingertips and how best to use it.

Together we could find a practical solution to a business problem, discover new opportunities within your sector, or support you to develop an over-arching strategy for your company. Read on to find out more about services which could benefit you.

Funding to work with our researchers

Across four universities our researchers investigate four streams which have the potential to benefit society, and if you're a small-medium sized business they're available to work with you on a project which matters to you. The Support for Vulnerable People stream investigates the support and care that vulnerable people need and could help you to assess your services. Our Local Economic Growth stream investigates the key factors that hinder business growth and could help you develop a winning business strategy. The Mapping Public Access to Green Infrastructure stream aims to address a lack of information across the country about where green spaces are and whether they are accessible to the public. These three thematic streams are supported by our cutting edge research on Methodologies for Big Data Analytics which ensures our research uses the latest techniques and maximises the possibilities of what your data can be used for.

Our Data Analytics Innovation Vouchers (DAIVs) are the perfect way to get a project with us started. The vouchers are worth up to £2,000 and can be used to pay for an academic researcher to spend time working with you on a specific project. We are able to work alongside you to exploit your data, enable your business to grow, and to use data analytics to put in place more effective and efficient processes. Example collaborative projects we have received applications for include:

• Developing robust marketing tools and strategies using data analytics to ensure that products are chosen to meet the needs and preferences of clients.
• Working alongside SMEs on a national level to assist with the growth of local businesses.
• Feasibility studies to understand the data that needs to be collected, and methodologies that need to be taken, to carry out larger scale projects.

If you're a small-medium sized business and have got an idea for a project then you can register your interest now, or you can contact us for a general chat about how we may be able to help.

Previously we have worked alongside the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership (NALEP) to analyse the impact of business support services for entrepreneurs and SMEs on firm performance in Norfolk and Suffolk. You can read the research paper to understand if we could carry out a similar project with your organisation or find out more in the researcher’s blog.

Upskill your team with data analytics training

We can provide training in a range of topics from machine learning techniques and predictive analytics to visualisation and programming in R and Python.

We have carried out a number of successful training courses and welcome business attendees. Throughout 2018 we are expecting to offer many free training courses and seminars across the UK. Previous topics have included:

• An Introduction to GIS - this has focused on the use of both the ArcGIS and QGIS software packages.
• An Introduction to Agent Based Modelling.
• An Introduction to Social Network Analysis.
• Experimentation process.
• What Works? Processes and techniques for evaluating the effectiveness of interventions.

As well as offering places on our upcoming training events we can also organise bespoke training courses for your organisation. Please contact us so we can explore how our training services could help your organisation.

Here's some feedback we've had from these courses in the past:

“I found it all interesting. Being completely new to the process of GIS mapping (I have only ever seen the results it has produced in reports) it was really interesting to see how the layers of data can be overlayed to produce very specific data correlations.”

“All fascinating, was good to get a chance to be hands-on and make models.”

“I will [now] map the results of a research project which used a geographical cross-section in a regression model to visualise the results.”

We can also offer bespoke training opportunities and courses depending on the needs of your organisation and others in your area. Please contact us to find out more.

Our regular webinars are free of charge for anybody to attend. View our upcoming events, training and webinars now or visit our Vimeo page to watch back recordings from past events.