The RISE programmes
A variety of programmes to suit your innovation needs
The RISE team have developed a suite of programmes that can be opted into when best suits you and your business needs. Programmes begin with introductory sessions on innovation, to sector or business specific masterclasses and workshops, and on to fully-funded R&D projects with input from subject specialists from the Universities of Brighton or Sussex. The RISE programmes provides members with a minimum of 12 hours support, through 1-2-1’s, workshops or Access to Expertise projects - after which you will receive a RISE Innovation Certificate detailing your activity on the project. To learn more, visit our programme pages below.
Innovation programmes and activities
RISE offers your business a number of flexible ways to grow your innovation capability:
Innovation Audits
Our Innovation Audit is where we often start the conversation with our members.
This is where we take a deep dive into your business needs and objectives, explore opportunities and develop a workable effective action plan. This may include our Recovery or Horizons programmes or using the Access to Expertise funding to transfer some knowledge into the business.
Using our bespoke Innovation Audit tool, created by the University of Brighton’s Centre of Change, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, we can provide you with an evidence-based snapshot of your internal structures and processes, known as your ‘Innovation Score’.
As a member of RISE you’ll have access to our Innovation Advisors to explore, develop and progress your ideas on a 1-2-1 basis throughout.
Our Innovation Audit and time with our Innovation Advisors is free of charge.
RISE Horizons
Our Horizons programme is a series of inspiring and thematic workshops and masterclasses, created to share the latest cutting edge research and insights around sector-specific challenges and their emerging opportunities.
The aim is to help you to develop agile and innovative approaches that will enable you to build resilience to national and global challenges within your business.
Our three Horizon themes are:
Some workshops are ‘open’ to both non-members and RISE members, but most are only available to members. Workshops are free, short, snappy and practical and offer the latest expert thinking and research in specific business areas.
STEPS to Innovation and RISE RECOVERY
Our NEW STEPS to Innovation programme will be running another cohort in May 2023 – More information
Our programmes will develop your innovation skills and capability to create new products, services, processes or a new business model in response to the impact of Covid and Brexit.
Delivered by our team of university business innovation experts, this flexible series will build your knowledge and confidence to drive innovation in your business. It will give you the tools you need to become resilient and agile, providing you with a competitive advantage for the future.
Collaborate with members
‘RISE and Shine' Innovation Club
Join the RISE community of active innovators for a monthly infusion of idea sharing, problem solving, collaboration and best practice as we launch our RISE and Shine ‘Innovation Club’.
Each month we will meet at venues across West Sussex for 3 hours – using our NEW unique innovative and inspiring format. We promise that sessions will be enormously valuable as we combine the chance to network face-to-face with fellow RISE members, support each other with challenges and opportunities and take inspiration from our ‘Innovation in Action’ which showcases businesses from across the region who have successfully innovated in these challenging times.
Explore RISE and Shine Innovation Club
If you have any questions about the RISE project or any of it’s programmes, you can get in touch with the team at rise@brighton.ac.uk
RISE Member Portal
Members of RISE will be able to access the member portal of the website which focuses on four key areas:
1. Connect – our membership directory, messaging service and ’matching’ members with similar innovation challenges and opportunities can provide an easy way for you to network with others and work together to overcome innovation challenges
2. Develop – in this area we will host a huge variety of documents, articles, videos and other resources that will provide you with knowledge and research, practical tools and recordings of our RISE webinars. All of these will be tagged with our various innovation challenges so that you can easily identify information that will best help you.
3. Opportunities – this is where we will post calls to the RISE Access to Expertise programme, and provide information about other external sources of support and funding
Access to Expertise – up to £12,000 funding for R&D Projects
The unique opportunity that RISE presents to members is the ability to have a ‘one-stop-shop’ to working with both University of Brighton and University of Sussex. The RISE partnership between the Universities means that you have a much wider range of academic expertise to collaborate with on your innovation idea. Our Innovation Advisors, working with expert teams in both Universities will help turn your idea into an innovation project, attach an expert academic to it who will work with you on a bespoke piece of research to help further your innovation. The RISE project, with funding support from West Sussex County Council will cover the academic cost for them to work on your project.
Access to Expertise will also be available through our thematic and sector focused Innovation Calls
RISE – Introduction to Horizons – RISE (rise-innovation.uk)