Welcome to RIBEN

ESRC RIBEN (Retail Industry Business Engagement Network) brings together four of the UK's leading retail research groups at the Universities of Southampton, Oxford, Leeds and Surrey. Together these groups have some of the strongest existing research partnerships with the retail industry.

Most recent work published by Southampton researchers within the RIBEN group is the University of Southampton/Tesco report Revisiting the Impact of Large Foodstores on Market Towns and District Centres presented at the British Property Federation seminar on the 2nd December 2010.

The Business Voucher Scheme

The Retail Industry Business Engagement Network (RIBEN) Business Voucher Scheme awards SMEs a £3,000 voucher to purchase academic support for ‘business relevant’ university research expertise from one of the four RIBEN partner universities.

Vouchers will be allocated to successful small and medium sized companies (SMEs) who would like to work with one of the RIBEN partner Universities and its experts in helping to develop ideas or processes that will benefit the company. Successful projects will include consultancy or technical services or small research projects.

We can provide advice and support in the following areas:

Research into a company's markets and identification of new materials and products
Business process design
Analysis of potential customer base for a new product or service
Exploiting new web technologies
Delivery of a customised training course
Use of specialist facilities e.g. mapping or analysis software
Analysis of datasets, e.g. census, retail statistics, business rents, etc.

For further information about the RIBEN project and Business Vouchers follow the links on the left-hand side of the page.