The Start-Up Hub provides wrap-around support for any student and recent graduate of Edge Hill who is starting up their own business or pursuing a self-employed career path as a professional practitioner.
The Start-Up Hub offers a dedicated incubation facility – a multi-purpose centre in the Business School for hot-desk working, workshops, training and meetings – accelerator support programmes, and mentoring.
Components of support
The Start-Up Hub offers three key components of support:
1. Incubator
The Incubator is a dedicated space for entrepreneurs to work on their business venture, as well as meet and network with other entrepreneurs in the campus community. Pod-style office space is available for hot-desking and the collaborative spaces for learning and networking will create an environment which is connected to business experts, academic staff and dedicated resources.
2. Support Programmes
The Start-Up Hub offers three practical support programmes for students and graduates at different stages of their entrepreneurial journey – from initial idea generation, start-up and launch through to early growth planning.
The support programmes are short and intensive, delivered in a group based, peer-to-peer format, and facilitated by business experts.
Further details on each of the support programmes is below.
3. Mentoring
All students and graduates who are accepted onto the Support Programmes are offered access to a entrepreneurship mentor, who can provide one-to-one support, sign-posting and facilitate access to resources and expertise where available.
“Take every opportunity that comes your way… there is always someone to support you”
Greg Anderton, Founder, Leafy Lytham
Support Programmes
The support programmes run throughout the year and are designed to support students and graduates at different stages of their planning, launch and early growth of their business venture.
To support those entrepreneurs at the beginning of their journey, Ideation support helps students and graduates generate and refine their business venture ideas in a collaborative environment.
Participants will leave the Ideation programme with a clearer focus of what problems or opportunities they are trying to address, what products or services they could offer, what the market opportunity is, and how the business venture would generate revenue and a profit.
The next planned Ideation programme sessions are in September 2026.
The Accelerator is an intensive 6-week programme which is designed to support those students and graduates who are ready to start their business venture from pre-planning through to launch. It is designed to equip students with the know-how and confidence required to take the steps to start-up and give them every chance of initial success.
Over the six weeks the Accelerator will cover:
- Business proposition and vision
- Customer validation and market testing
- Business model and revenue strategy
- Marketing strategy and digital presence
- Finance, funding and operations
- Pitching and growth planning
The next Accelerator programme will commence on Wednesday 10 June 2026.
The Early Growth programme is designed to support established, but young businesses with additional support to solidify and boost their traction in the market.
The Early Growth programmes helps established businesses prepare for the next phase of growth, moving from a sole trader or single employee business into one one which is creating new jobs, maturing the digital infrastructure and developing the business model further to ensure longer term survivability and growth.
Taking place over 6 weeks, the Early Growth programme will cover:
- Business diagnostics and benchmarking
- Growth strategy
- Customer retention and experience optimisation
- Marketing for growth
- Finance and scaling operations
- Strategic partnerships and growth levers
The Early Growth programme is planned for introduction from academic year 2026/27.
What type of business venture are you interested in?
The Start-Up Hub will support entrepreneurs from any subject area across the University. We know from the Career Readiness Survey and Edge Hill’s Graduate Outcomes data that up to 350 students express an interest in entrepreneurship each year and around 70 graduates either start a new business or register for self-employment. The Start-Up Hub is here to support everyone thinking about a business or self-employment as their career path and works closely with the Careers Centre to ensure students and recent graduates can access the support they need.
Start-Up Hub team
Contact us
To register your interest for any of our support programmes please get in touch:
