Research, evaluation and insight

The Ayrshire Key Fund aimed to encourage the growth of community based organisations and the contribution that they make to regeneration activities, by improving access to European Structural Funds.

Scottish Enterprise Borders (SEB) obtained funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) for a two year initiative designed to attract talented young people into the Scottish textile industry, branded ‘Behind the Label’.

BioDundee is an umbrella marketing organisation for the biotechnology sector in Dundee.

The project, run by SE Borders, SE Dumfries and Galloway, and later by SE Forth Valley, aimed to test the suitability of broadband satellite delivery and assist in establishing a sustainable and affordable means of broadband for peripheral areas.

Scottish Enterprise’s Business Transformation Programme (BTP) aimed to begin a transformational approach of business process re-design that would drive a number of operating benefits for SE, both in terms of service improvement and efficiency gains.

The Burns Festival took place in Ayr between 27 April and 5 May 2002.

The ‘Burns and a’ that’ festival aimed to celebrate Scottish creativity and the arts by: raising awareness of Robert Burns, contemporary Scottish culture, Ayrshire and Scotland; generating additional bed-nights in Ayrshire; deriving economic benefits from the event; and providing a positive platform for the attraction of private sponsorship in future years.

The main goal of the audit was to see if the award of the Business Gateway Fife (BGF) contract on a non-competitive basis represented value for money.

The evaluation was commissioned prior to the Business Gateway contract being put out for tender in 2007.

The Business Mentoring Scotland (BMS) programme aimed to provide mentoring services to over 100 companies of varying age and activity, attracting the goodwill support of some 100 experienced business people.

Cavalry Park is a business park in Peebles, located within a landscaped setting.

The Chair in Tourism at the University of Stirling aimed to: research into aspects of tourism and establish a tourism research centre; lead tourism degree courses and integrate tourism with existing courses; establish the Chair of Tourism as an independent ‘think tank’ for the tourism industry; and establish linkages with business clients.

Scottish Enterprise (SE) commissioned EKOS to undertake a review of the literature SE holds on the subject of clusters.

The Scottish Enterprise (SE) Network pioneered the ‘cluster’ method of supporting industries in Scotland.

The evaluation looked at existing information on labour market programmes operating in Glasgow and the West of Scotland: ‘Glasgow Works’ and ‘Training for Work’.

The Growth Programme, part of the wider Gateway Service, aimed to support companies that had significant potential to grow and that had made a demonstrable commitment to growth.

The Workforce Development Programme Core Skills Pilot aimed to look at the effectiveness of two differing approaches to training in Core Skills – a traditional classroom style approach and a supported e-learning approach.

The evaluation aimed to: identify the direct and indirect contribution of HQ functions to the Scottish economy, including indigenous and externally controlled HQs; set out the factors driving change in the nature and role of corporate HQs; identify emerging HQ models, the factors which determine the location of HQs and their potential mobility; suggest an HQ market segmentation to inform Scottish Enterprise’s operations; and draw out the strategic and operational implications for Scottish…

Creative Edinburgh (CE) aimed to: bring together the creative industries community in Edinburgh; encourage growth in the sector; and raise the ambitions of those companies involved in commercial activity.

Get Ready for Work (GRfW) aimed to provide training and additional support to young people who otherwise ‘would be unable to access other training, learning or employment opportunities’ in Lanarkshire’s rural and remote areas.

The Developing People in Tourism project (DPIT) was designed to give training support and assistance to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in the tourism sector in the Borders.

The e-Business Initiative has aimed to raise awareness and accelerate adoption of e-business and supplier development amongst businesses in Dumfries and Galloway.

The e-Business Centre (e-BC) aimed to offer e-business services and support to local businesses.

The e-Businessadvisers Programme, which ran from 2000 to 2005, was designed to address two principal market failures: companies’ lack of strategic preparation for e-business; and weaknesses in the provider community’s ability to engage with clients.

The research involved a survey of the owners of businesses with websites, in Dumfries and Galloway, looking at: the perceived success of the company website in terms of the expectations of the owner; the levels of interest in seminars, workshops, tools and fact sheets as developed and made available to clients by Scottish Enterprise; and preferred attendance times for seminars and workshops.