University of Portsmouth: our students, your business, finding solutions together

Our students are doing more than just learning at University, they’re embedding their knowledge directly into your local businesses – solving real world problems as active partners in research, innovation, and local economic development.

Last month we celebrated both the Launch of The Marketing Agency at the Annual Shaping Portsmouth Conference, and another successful year of collaborative business-based projects at the Business Consultancy Celebration event.

The Marketing Agency is being delivered as part of the Portsmouth Business Support Service and brings together the University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth City Council and Shaping Portsmouth. It offers local organisations access to marketing insight, analysis and strategic support that might otherwise be out of reach for smaller firms.

Professor Anne Murphy, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) at the University of Portsmouth, said: “This initiative shows how our students’ talent and research expertise can drive meaningful impact for local businesses. The Marketing Agency gives students invaluable hands‑on experience while enabling organisations to make informed, strategic decisions. We are proud to collaborate with Portsmouth City Council and Shaping Portsmouth on a programme that supports both learning and economic growth.”

Meanwhile, our Business Consultancy Celebration event last week gave us the opportunity to say thank you to our business clients, and to acknowledge the hard work and resilience of our students.

Business Consultancy Projects take place each autumn and see final-year students from across our business and law programmes form mini-consulting firms to work with businesses and non-profits on a real business project. The 2025 programme saw 120 students work with 29 businesses from across the public, private and third sectors.

Business Consultancy Project client, Luca Frederick, started his business – Local Linked – during a self-employed placement year at the University. He worked with a team of students through the autumn and took part in a Q&A session about his experience as part of the event. Luca said,

“Going into BCP I was excited to get different perspectives from fellow students on LocalLinked. Having a fresh set of eyes to look over everything was amazing; they explored areas of the business that I had never even thought of. Highly recommend!”

If you would like to know more about how a student project could support your business, please email [email protected].

For details of all our Business Services, please visit https://www.port.ac.uk/business-services