Member Article

SkillsToGrowNE helping businesses grow through higher level skills

SkillsToGrowNE.co.uk is a new and unique web portal for businesses in the North East. Its aim is to encourage economic growth, and increase skills levels and innovation, through promoting collaboration between business and the North East’s universities and colleges. It provides a single gateway for businesses to access the vast range of support and expertise available from the region’s universities and colleges, as well as access to a range of useful information and links to regional business support organisations.

The North East’s universities and colleges are an integral part of the skills and innovation supply chain to business. The SkillsToGrowNE.co.uk portal provides a comprehensive ‘go-to’ web site for employers looking to develop their businesses by giving them a single point of access to business support services and dedicated staff across the region’s colleges and universities.

The site has been developed in response to feedback from businesses across the region who sometimes found difficulty in accessing the relevant institutions and people to help them to develop and grow their business. The design and functionality of the site has been created in conjunction with the business community to ensure that it provides the information they want and is easy to navigate.

The site includes a range of fact sheets and information for businesses, highlighting the key skills and recruitment issues facing their sector, both now and in the future; as well as useful web links to business support organisations and initiatives across the North East. It uses case studies from employers to demonstrate how our region’s colleges and universities have worked with companies to develop solutions to address specific business needs- ranging from student projects and internships, through to Knowledge Transfer Partnerships. This enables businesses to gain an understanding of the type of support that is available and what type of business solutions might be appropriate to their needs.

SkillsToGrowNE .co.uk is free and has a number of features, enabling businesses to select a range of information. They can:

- search by industry sector to find potential solutions to your business needs;

- find out how other businesses have benefited from working with the HE sector;

- access and download a range of industry sector based information, guides and fact sheets;

- understand the key skills issues affecting their industry sector - now and in the future;

- receive email alerts about business support events in the region;

- find and link to the most appropriate business support staff to help you; and,

- collect information from across the site and create your own bespoke reports.

The site is unique to the North East, and provides an important on-line resource for business. Following the closure of ONE North East and the regional Business Link service, it is increasingly difficult for businesses to know where to go to access the information and support they need to develop and grow their businesses. SkillsToGrowNE.co.uk provides a single point of access for business support in the region, and hosts a range of information, including skills intelligence, business events, and links to organisations and regional initiatives together in one place, saving businesses time and effort when seeking support from the Higher Education providers in the North East.

Each university and college manages their own content on the site, ensuring that the information and contacts are kept up to date.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by SkillsToGrowNE .