Business voucher information

What is a Business Voucher ?

RIBEN Business Vouchers are aimed at small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) who work in the retail sector who would like to take their first steps in engaging with University experts to address a business question. This could be in the form of a short term piece of market research, advice on business processes, or consultancy on branding and marketing. This expertise will come from academics working in the RIBEN cluster universities.

Each voucher is worth £3000 and can be used to fund roughly a week of effort, depending on the skills required.

Types of projects which could be supported include:

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

Business Vouchers cannot be used for:

standard training courses
software purchases
website design and build where it does not enable substantive changes in either the SME's product development practices or distribution models.
marketing website build that does not enable transactions
business support activities that would normally be carried out by Business Link and related organisations e.g. basic business planning, support for expansion of a business, new start up advice, etc
aid that would promote/ subsidise the cost of exports
internships for students of knowledge institutions
design and production of advertising materials
sales activities