Supporting creative student freelancers and startups: What works?

Simmons, Marcus ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6180-7105 and Langford, Sue (2026) Supporting creative student freelancers and startups: What works? In: International Entrepreneurship Educators Conference, September 2nd to 4th 2026, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham. (Unpublished)

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Slideshow (Presentation delivered at annual EEUK conference highlighting business startup support provided to students from a wide range of creative courses.) Supporting creative student freelancing and startups - What works - Final.pdf - Presentation Download (4MB) | Preview

Abstract / Summary

The research discussed in this seminar proposal will be completed during the summer of 2026. The EEUK audience will therefore be the first to gain insights from our new research findings.

The researchers are building on work being published in May / June 2026 examining the effectiveness of the fully funded Launchpad business venture programme from the student perspective. We found entrepreneurial success linked more strongly to motivation than access to funds, plus many benefits linked to experiential learning (Simmons and Langford, 2026).

The new research seeks to find out which forms of support provided to more than 60 creative students over a two-year period worked most effectively. Students taking part ranged from first year undergraduates to postgraduates from all schools within a top-ranking UK creative arts university seeking support with business ideas or freelancing.

Extracurricular support ranged from group workshops and individual coaching to seed funding and a dragon’s den competition. All support focussed on the agency of each student to develop their business idea into a real business by encouraging them to take action to validate their ideas.

Students were invited to reflect on their experience through semi-structured interviews by an independent researcher in the summer of 2026. This was between 6 to 18 months after the students had received support. Questions focused on three areas: the decision to seek support, experience during support, and reflections on how the support impacted their subsequent business developed.

The aim was to find out which forms of entrepreneurial support had the greatest impact on creative students and their nascent businesses.

The value of this research is to help entrepreneurship educators in the creative sector develop programmes of maximum impact for creative students, who typically start their business journey as sole traders rather than limited companies.

Four action-orientated support options could be accessed by students, including access to funding. Find out which activities students valued most, and what these interventions helped them go on to achieve with their business ideas.

If you deliver extracurricular entrepreneurship support - how do you know what works? This session will provide answers to this important question by reviewing interview reflections from students about what worked best for them and their business.

How can we best help creative students become confident freelancers or business founders? This session is aimed at people who deliver entrepreneurship support either within courses and modules or extracurricular. We present student-centred insights into what works best for them and their business.

Item Type:	Conference Item (Other)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Extracurricular Freelance Startup Experiential learning Higher Education
Subjects:	Education Business > Entrepreneurship
Department:	Cornwall Business School
Depositing User:	Marcus Simmons
Date Deposited:	23 Sep 2026 10:35
Last Modified:	23 Sep 2026 10:35
URI:	https://repository.falmouth.ac.uk/id/eprint/6598

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