Student Placements and Projects
Unique insights for students, meaningful results for your organisation.
Why host a placement or project student?
Host stories: Ian Roderick, Schumacher Institute, speaks about the benefits of working with students:
- Access business support and insight at no cost to you:
- Placement students work on meaningful projects or tasks for your organisation.
- Project students carry out high quality research and analysis of an issue that is important to you.
- Engage with potential future employees from a range of backgrounds.
- Join a network of professionals across the globe and access more opportunities to connect with the University of Bristol.
If you would benefit from some additional support or have an idea for a project, please email fssl-pln@bristol.ac.uk
What’s involved?
We work with you to develop placement and project ideas, to ensure that it meets both your organisation’s requirements and the student’s learning outcomes.
We match the best student(s) to your project or placement. You are not required to recruit or assess the student(s).
Before, during and after the project or placement, you gain access to specialist university support, including inductions and ongoing supervision.
Placements
- Unpaid and 80 hours long (typically one day per week for 10-12 weeks).
- Flexible working arrangements depending on your requirements.
- Available to second year undergraduate students in Schools of Management, Education and Policy Studies.
- Organisations are required to:
- assign a line manager / mentor for the duration of the placement to provide induction, consistent support and guidance.
- structure a placement to ensure students can meet the 80 hour requirement.
Host stories: Mark Chandler, DEFRA, speaks about the fantastic work undertaken by a placement student:
Projects
- Unpaid, 4-5 months of dedicated research.
- Option for individual or group projects (depending on the programme).
- Available to postgraduate and undergraduate students across the Faculty.
- Organisations are required to:
- meet with students at the start of the project.
- have (typically) 1-2 meetings with students and should be responsive to emails throughout duration of project.
Host stories: Rachel Moffat, Bristol Energy Network, who talks about a project focused on helping their small business grow:
What business ideas, areas and/or issues could I develop for a student?
Please expand each drop down for some common examples (but not limited to) of placement and project areas.
Management and Marketing Consultancy (projects and placements)
- Marketing strategy and analysis, including social media
- Fundraising strategy
- Diversifying income portfolio for financial sustainability
- Project management
- Reviewing HR policies and procedures
- Business operations and partnerships strategy
- Market and competitor research
- Feasibility studies
- Digitalisation and big data
- Leadership and strategy
- Corporate Social Responsibility
- International Business Management
- Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Data analysis (projects)
- Digital marketing, social media and web analytics
- Identifying trends in financial customer data such as through transactional, insurance, investment and loans data
- Financial technology such as forecasting, AI, machine learning, cryptocurrencies, and process automation
- Recommendations on using financial products/ services
- Behavioural economics
- Strategic Alignment
- Optimisation/simulation
- Big data analytics and modelling analytics
Sustainability impact and analysis (projects)
- Policy assessment
- Stakeholder engagement research
- Communication/marketing campaigns
- Political consultancy
- Corporate social/environmental responsibility
- Analysis of existing data sets and report-making
- Lobbying reports and policy brief writing
Early years, primary and secondary education, youth and mental health support (placements)
- Teaching assistant support
- School workshop delivery
- Research
- Curriculum design
- Education policy development
Policy Studies (placements)
- Policy development
- Project support
- Client programme evaluation
- Client support
- Fundraising support
- Research
We have a report that not only gives us measures and info for the community that we work within, but will also help inform us about the services we deliver in the future. It is of such a professional standard that we will likely distribute it externally to local community organisations.
Timescales
|
April |
Recruitment period starts. Projects and placements developed for the next academic year. |
|
July |
Placements finalised. |
|
October |
Projects finalised. |
|
October – April |
Placements run. |
|
February – May / May – September |
Projects run (timings differ depending on the programme). |
FAQs
Are there any limitations on the number of students I can host?
No. You can host as many project and placement students as you like however, there should be some considerations around resource to support the students whilst the project or placement is running.
What output can I expect at the end of a project?
Outputs will differ slightly depending on the programme, but you will receive a summary of the findings through a report and/or a presentation.
What output can I expect at the end of a placement?
This depends on the set of tasks or project that you give the students across the duration of the placement.
Do we have to pay students?
No. The students are doing this for academic credit so should not be paid and are not expecting payment. Students claim their travel and incidental expenses from the University.