Discipline-based academic literacy in two contexts

This article considers the value of discipline-based academic literacy courses in Management Studies and Science. It outlines the most important genres in these two undergraduate areas of study, before going to describe two discipline-based academic literacy courses located in these two fields. It argues that basing academic literacy courses in the disciplines that students are studying is essential in assisting students to acquire discipline-specific genres, and is likely to be far more effective than a generic course in facilitating students' access into the discourse community of their disciplines. This is in line with the idea that language use is dependent on context and needs to be developed in context. Keywords: discipline-based language learning, academic literacy, science writing, commerce writingJournal for Language Teaching Vol. 39(1) 2005: 66-7

Multipartite Attitudes to Enterprise : A Comparative Study of Young People and Place

The article examines young people’s attitudes towards enterprise, comparing prosperous and deprived neighbourhoods and two UK cities. Corpus linguistics analysis identified multi-layered attitudes and variations in how place prosperity and city affect attitudes. High interest in enterprise was associated with weaker place attachment and reduced social embeddedness. Young adults from prosperous neighbourhoods delegitimised other’s enterprises; the ‘deprived’ sub-corpus included more fluid notions of enterprise legitimacy. Liverpool accounts contained stronger discursive threads around self-determination; Bradford accounts included greater problematizing of entrepreneurship versus employment. An original Multipartite Model of Attitudes to Enterprise is presented consisting of four layers: attitudes to enterprise generally; attitudes legitimising particular forms of enterprise; attitudes to enterprise related to place; and attitudes to enterprise related to self. The conclusion explains why policies and research need to be fine-grained and avoid uni-dimensional conceptualisations of attitudes to enterprise or deterministic arguments relating entrepreneurship to specific types of places or backgrounds

The language of social entrepreneurs

This paper questions the application of the entrepreneurship discourse to social entrepreneurship in the UK and looks at how people ‘doing’ social enterprise appropriate or re-write the discourse to articulate their own realities. Drawing on phenomenological enquiry and discourse analysis, the study analyses the micro discourses of social entrepreneurs, as opposed to the meta rhetorics of (social) entrepreneurship. Analysis using both corpus linguistics software and Critical Discourse Analysis showed a preoccupation among interviewees with local issues, collective action, geographical community and local power struggles. Echoes of the enterprise discourse are evident but couched in linguistic devices that suggest a modified social construction of entrepreneurship, in which interviewees draw their legitimacy from a local or social morality. These findings are at odds ideologically with the discursive shifts of UK social enterprise policy over the last decade, in which a managerially defined rhetoric of enterprise is used to promote efficiency, business discipline and financial independence. The paper raises critical awareness of the tension in meanings appropriated to the enterprise discourse by social enterprise policy and practice and illustrates the value of discourse analysis for entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship research

Ecosystems and partnerships:Enabling factors for Data Driven Innovation (DDI) in the Creative Industries

What are the ecosystems and partnerships required to enable data-driven innovation to be taken up in the creative industries? This chapter discusses how ecosystems enable different forms of innovation through partnership networks in the creative industries. Case studies from Edinburgh and the southeast Scotland region, and Wales, demonstrate how online and in-person ecosystems can be enabled and how strategic partnerships can support innovation in the creative industries. The chapter analyses what impact small industry–focused research and development grants can have on ecosystems and what barriers are observed. It reflects on the effect of strategic decision and policymaking in relation to grassroots development and conversely how emerging R&D can inform policy

The crafting of an (un)enterprising community: context and the social practice of talk

This article examines a ‘deprived’ UK community to identify how (dis)connections between context and enterprise are produced within accounts of a particular locality. We used a discursive psychological approach to examine how the community depicted itself as a context for enterprise. Our analysis identified three discursive repertoires mobilised by a range of voices in the community which combined to portray an unenterprising community and create a conceptual deadlock for enterprise. We suggest it is too deterministic to assume context is fixed and controls the potential for entrepreneurial development. Instead, we should consider social practices, including talk, that help construct the contexts in which entrepreneurship is expected to occur

Young people and entrepreneurial cultures in low-income communities

Understanding how to support entrepreneurial cultures is critical for the future of places. Local entrepreneurial cultures are the shared views that determine how people in a place - or location -understand and experience the phenomenon of entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurship literature has often attributed lack of enterprise in certain types of places, particularly ëdepletedí or ëlow income communitiesí to an entrepreneurial deficit and distance from enterprise culture. In UK policy, however, enterprise has long been promoted as panacea to deprivation in lowincome communities . Little is known about how entrepreneurial cultures develop differently within more and less deprived places. Particularly little is known about how young people ís attitudes to enterprise, as one element of those shared views, are affected by place, as they conceptualise it. Yet entrepreneurial responses might still be needed most in the places marginalised from the growth centres. Enterprise initiatives targeting young people as an alternative career route tend to be universal rather than place-based and take-up of enterprise remains low. How far the potential for enterprise within young people ís trajectories is influenced by place is unknown. This paper reports the findings of a research project exploring the links between place, enterprise and young people in Bradford and Liverpool, UK. The research combined interpretive, corpus linguistic and discourse analysis to examine how certain place factors affect young adults í attitudes to enterprise in low-income versus more prosperous neighbourhoods. Beyond various age-based commonalities, we found that where they live and deprivation status each has defined effects on how young adults construct enterprise within their own trajectories and the trajectories of their places. This paper challenges views that attribute simplistic place or person specific factors to an area ís propensity for enterprise. We argue for understanding how place-based factors, expressed and shaped by the attitudes of young members of those places, affect the future of entrepreneurial cultures. In this way, the paper bridges thinking on informal, youth and place-based entrepreneurship

Developing data-driven innovation in creative industries

This White Paper reports on the findings of the Data-Driven Innovation (DDI) Programme Sector Development consultation (2018-20), which investigated the data capability and further potential for innovation across the creative industries in the Edinburgh and South East City Region of Scotland. It presents an overview of the findings with early models of delivery through The University of Edinburgh to stimulate greater awareness and support for data innovation ambition, as well as key themes to focus on for future development. Consultation was conducted with the creative industries community in the Edinburgh and South East City Region, including Scottish creative industries trade bodies and networks, leading creative companies and individual creative practitioners, and with staff in The University of Edinburgh. We are grateful to the industry for their feedback, and to colleagues within the Data-Driven Innovation Programme, Edinburgh Futures Institute, Creative Informatics Cluster and their partners Edinburgh Napier University, Codebase and Creative Edinburgh for their input, advice and support. The consultation that informs this White Paper was initiated and supported by the Data-Driven Innovation Programme of The University of Edinburgh within the Edinburgh and South East Region City Deal

Ecosystems and partnerships: Enabling factors for data-driven innovation in the creative industries

What are the ecosystems and partnerships required to enable data-driven innovation to be taken up in the creative industries? This chapter discusses how ecosystems enable different forms of innovation through partnership networks in the creative industries. Case studies from Edinburgh and the southeast Scotland region, and Wales, demonstrate how online and in-person ecosystems can be enabled and how strategic partnerships can support innovation in the creative industries. The chapter analyses what impact small industry–focused research and development grants can have on ecosystems and what barriers are observed. It reflects on the effect of strategic decision and policymaking in relation to grassroots development and conversely how emerging R&D can inform policy

Digital and data literacy:Models for data training and upskilling for the future creative industries

In this chapter we explore models for training and upskilling people in the creative industries in data, technology and entrepreneurial skills, situating this in the wider skills and training context. We will particularly look at the challenges of delivering training in the creative sector where innovation and problem solving are core skills, but capacity for continuous professional development is frequently limited by the nature of employment/freelancer working and existing data and business literacy