BGA | BUSINESS IMPACT
enrichment workshops provided by the School’s academic staff on various topics, such as SAGE 50 accounting, Making Tax Digital and Microsoft Word and Excel training. This ‘Certificate of Learning’ awarding programme benefits communities by boosting personal development, skills, confidence and CVs, thus enhancing technical skills while making a difference to the organisation or community group they are working within or support. The faculty members benefit from these initiatives as it provides them with a development opportunity (especially early-career staff) to engage with local businesses and community stakeholders to build partnerships and work together in addressing real-world business needs. In some cases, these relationships and connections with practice evolve into successful research projects that produce a societal impact where both our researchers and business community mutually benefit. Aside from its potential for impact in the community, in your opinion, how does the School’s Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) benefit the School? The School prioritises growing engagement with small business and entrepreneurs. In support of this, we provide a number of activities and programmes, including the Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) programme. Supported by Barclays UK, the KTN is an established, open and free-to-access community of SMEs that act to support each other and work collaboratively with the School of Management and across the University. The network has impacted on more than 5,000 SMEs over its lifecycle and has a current membership of well over 1,500 SMEs. Through this, we have offered networking seminars and events for around 3,000 businesses in Bradford for more than 15 years. During the Covid period, we have continued to deliver the KTN through a series of virtual facilitated events. Due to its participant's mix – i.e. representatives from local businesses, public organisations, and third sector organisations, as well as academics, students and alumni, KTN provides a solid networking platform. KTN members have acted as mentors and role models for our students and is a source for industry consultation. Together with its local project and placement opportunities, this makes the KTN key to supporting the success of our students. Which single new programme, course, or initiative are you most excited about and why? What excites me is the delivery of the School’s ambitious five-year strategy (2020-25) which sets out bold actions to use our responsible management education, distinctive and relevant research and partnerships to empower change. The strategy has been developed and built incorporating inputs from staff, students, international and industry advisory boards, community groups, and organisations that we work with, embedding recommendations from our triple-crown accreditation bodies (AACSB, AMBA, EQUIS) and our commitment to UN PRME principles. As a School, we want to continue to focus on supporting economic and social regeneration, suited to the real-life challenges of society by supporting non-traditional students’ engagement with local, regional and international businesses and communities. Our planned efforts and developments will therefore focus on opening up the value of the School for more people; scale business and community engagement initiatives; provide more diverse, work-ready talent for both small businesses and large organisations, bridge the
Sankar Sivarajah is Head of the School of Management and a Professor of Technology Management and Circular Economy at the University of Bradford, UK.
He is actively engaged in research and teaching in the fields of circular economy and the responsible use of technology. He is a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy and a member of the British Academy of Management.
skills gap and enable businesses in the region and globally to access university resources and thereby support their growth.
Your research is said to concentrate largely on the use of emerging digital technology for the betterment of society. Can you tell me a bit about one of your current or recent projects in this area? A recent project of mine with fellow researchers has been on developing a concept of ‘drone swarms’, airborne AI units capable of quickly gathering masses of information about crops, soil temperature, moisture levels and the use of pesticides which have the potential to transform farming, increase yields and make production more efficient. The research project has recently been published in Production Planning and Control Journal and has applications in places where there is a need for farmers to explore vast areas of inaccessible land. We have conceptualised the idea and the next step is to simulate and test the real thing. Agritech and food security is a huge area, both in the UK and across the world. As AI grows, this will become much more important. Emerging technologies act as an enabler for most organisations which can end up being used for good or bad, so I believe it’s important to use it in the right way and for the betterment of society. Your teaching at MBA level includes the circular economy. What do tomorrow’s business managers and owners need to know and understand about the circular economy? One thing I always highlight to our executives is to first get to grips with the fundamentals of the circular economy and its principles and not to misinterpret it with various [aspects of the] sustainability agenda. Unfortunately, the terms ‘circularity’ and ‘sustainability’ are used together and somewhat interchangeably, which dilutes the importance and action related to either one. Our current and future business managers, owners and leaders need to be in a position to challenge the norm and move away from the linear industrial economy practices of make, use and dispose. The principles of circular economy as a framework equips them to do exactly that and enables them to rethink our industrial economy by design or intention. Innovation and enterprise lie at the heart of the circular economy where harnessing new ideas, modernising old ideas and shifting to circular models for value creation, retention and recovery is a must for today’s business managers and owners, not just tomorrow’s.
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