Patricia Wilson and Dr Yongmei Bentley delivered training as part of a project called Creative Spark, led by the University’s Business School Professor, Yanqing Duan whose goal is to support young and creative people with business initiatives.

Creative Spark is funded by the British Council’s Higher Education Enterprise Programme and is in partnership with the Ukrainian Engineering Pedagogics Academy (UEPA). The project aims to develop entrepreneurial skills of students and young creative entrepreneurs, support new business activation and incubation, and to transfer knowledge.

Senior Tutor in Strategy and Management, Patricia Wilson said: “We were thrilled by the engagement and participation of those attending the training events. The opportunity to exchange ideas and to demonstrate the interactive and engaging nature of the teaching and learning styles used at the University of Bedfordshire was very much appreciated."

UEPA were delighted with the turnout and the success of the training event. Dr Elena Iarmosh, Dean of the Faculty of Economics Administrative and Educational Technologies thanked the University’s academics and said: “There are a lot of wonderful testimonials from our participants. The training sessions have equipped the participants with the essential skills for creative thinking which will be subsequently passed on to our future entrepreneurs at the next stage of the project.”

Young people in creative industry are facing challenges in transforming their innovative ideas into viable business enterprises. In Ukraine, the impact of creative industries is growing rapidly, but support for entrepreneurial development is very limited, which makes the need for Creative Spark even more important.