Teesside University internships create hundreds of jobs

More than 420 jobs will be created over the next three years by Teesside University in a £4.6m project to put graduates on internships with smaller businesses.

The project, which is jointly funded by the university and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), aims to match graduate skills to the needs of hundreds of businesses in the North East. The ERDF announced yesterday that it had agreed to match-fund the university scheme.

Professor Graham Henderson, vice- chancellor and chief executive of Teesside University, said: "We are fully committed to working in partnership with business and to boosting graduate employment prospects, and I greatly welcome this ERDF support for our efforts.

This funding not only helps us to play a key role in improving business competitiveness through expert knowledge exchange and innovation but will also be invaluable in helping us to create literally hundreds of new job opportunities within small businesses in our region."

A major strand of the project is the Graduates for Business initiative, which will see 375 graduates taking up salaried internships with SMEs throughout the region over the next three years, 125 per year.

"We know from experience that internships work for both the company and the graduate," said Laura Woods, the university's director of academic enterprise. "This initiative builds on a successful scheme that we ran last year, placing 250 graduates with employers, who are fully involved in recruitment and selection, to ensure a good match between their needs and what the graduates can offer."

A second strand is the Knowledge Exchange Internships (KEIs) programme, which puts graduates into SMEs for six to 12 months to tackle specific business change projects.

Woods added: "A KEI is ideal for a company needing expert help with a short-term project, perhaps to introduce new technology or new working practices. As well as a full-time graduate on the staff, the company gets academic support to deliver its improvement programme.

Longer-term programmes of this type, known as Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs), are extremely successful but they normally last for two or three years. We realised there was also a need for shorter schemes to help smaller companies."

One of the university's partnership projects with business was the KTP with Middlesbrough-based engineering company Stanley Vickers which led to university graduate Sara Zarei joining the 60-year-old firm after she helped it improve its manufacturing efficiency and production potential.

The ERDF grant will support 30 KEI projects per year for the next three years, which will see it supporting a total of 90 graduates at 90 firms.

The project will also provide information, advice and guidance to help graduates find routes into work or help in setting up their own businesses in the region.

Source: Iain Laing, Nebusiness.co.uk, Friday 12th August 2011