Your participation in a project will involve the following:

• The completion of a mandatory training module followed by a meeting with the work experience team ahead of your project commencing
• Assignment to a team, who you will meet at the initial meeting with the work experience team
• An initial meeting with your client to discuss their business needs
• Support throughout the challenge will be available from your client and Careers, Employability and Student Enterprise
• Work to be carried out on the challenge for the duration of three days – all team members to play an active role in the challenge across all three days
• Submit a short business report offering an overview of your innovative solutions
• On day four present your findings to your client and members of Careers, Employability and Student Enterprise as well as presenting to the other existing teams at the end of the three days
• You will then be awarded 1st, 2nd or 3rd place by your client, based on your ideas and presentation
• The challenge duration is four days and requires full commitment from every participant. All meetings with your team, client and Careers, Employability and Student Enterprise will be held physically within the four days, including your final presentation

Please register your interest now to receive updates about the Innovation Challenges.

• The Innovation Challenge is exclusive to University of Southampton students.
• Students on any degree discipline can take part, but please ensure the challenge does not interfere with your academic workload.

Please note: Being appointed onto the Innovation Challenge is a competitive process and unfortunately, not everyone is successful. When selecting students to participate in the programme we take into consideration the quality of the student application in terms of how well questions have been answered, attention to detail and accuracy. Additionally, in order to ensure a meaningful experience for our students and clients, we seek to appoint interdisciplinary teams with a mix of skillsets, diversity of degree subject, year group and nationality.

These projects are a fantastic way to build your awareness of business problems and gain an insight into how to build a professional network while developing skills that include:

o Confidence

o Time management

o Report writing

o Critical thinking

o Problem solving

o Market research

o Presentation

o Commercial Awareness