Entrepreneurship

Our courses in entrepreneurship examine the ways in which creative people, dynamic organisations and facilitative environments help to generate economic growth and social transformation. 

At Essex Business School, where our entrepreneurship degrees are taught, we aim to equip you with contemporary business knowledge but, more importantly, we aim to develop your practical skills through a combination of group work, business simulation games and interactive projects.

Upon graduation, many of our students decide to use what they have learnt to launch their own businesses or use the enterprising skills developed through studying entrepreneurship to take on business management and leadership roles.

We aim to use our research and teaching to support small and medium enterprises, to explore the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and to consider the disruptive potential of intrapreneurship.

We recognise that entrepreneurs come from a diverse range of backgrounds so we offer Masters courses in entrepreneurship for students who are new to the study of business and want to develop the skills needed to launch an innovative new start-up firm.

The University of Essex is ranked in the top 150 for Business and Economics in THE World University Rankings by Subject 2023, which makes us top 25 in the UK for Business and Economics in THE World University Rankings by Subject 2023.

You’ll study at our Southend Campus, in the heart of the Thames Gateway, one of the Government’s key areas for economic growth and a fitting location for entrepreneurial study. Essex has the highest number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK, meaning you are ideally located for launching your business or gaining inspiration to take back home.

Entrepreneurship, innovation and international management fuel the growth of regions. Our thought leaders are proud to be leading research that has an impact on people's everyday lives, influencing policy and practice and shaping the next generation of businesses.

Our international researchers work alongside our PhD students to study topics including supply chain and operations, strategy, the challenges faced by specific entrepreneurial groups, the development of the intrapreneur and how entrepreneurship is delivered in the national curriculum. 

We aim to champion innovative interdisciplinary projects and support our PhD students to design and conduct the research project you choose, rather than telling you to complete it in a particular way.   

We are very proud that 100% of our business and management research environment is world-leading or internationally excellent and that we are 20th in UK for research power in business and management (Times Higher Education research power measure) in the Research Excellence Framework 2021.

We’re pleased to be able to offer an integrated PhD, for students who have a strong research proposal but who do not have previous research or Masters-level study experience.

Our Research Groups and Centres

• Strategy, Operations and Entrepreneurship Group
  We aim to help organisations and entrepreneurs to increase their benefits to society and minimize their environmental impact.
• Centre for Research on Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Management and Internationalisation (REIMI)
  Our researchers are proud to contribute to a hub of research and training for entrepreneurship, innovation management and internationalisation.