Business Enterprise Development BSc

What is enterprise development?

Our innovative programme is constructed around you working in a team to set up and run your own enterprise. You will learn everything you need to know by experiencing it for yourself.

The BSc Business Enterprise Development degree at Aston University aims to give you the best start to learning about how to develop, sustain and grow a business. It has been adapted by the globally renowned Team Academy model of entrepreneurship education from Finland, and built on the following principles:

• Develop your entrepreneurial capacity and mindset through learning-by-doing.
• Experience the development of a real business that you own with a team of others.
• Determine your own learning focus and needs, supported by team coaches who are there to guide and help you develop.

How you’ll study

This course has been designed to equip you with the skills, competencies and attitudes to enhance both your entrepreneurial mindset and leadership capabilities. You may be interested in setting up your own enterprise or want to lead the development and success of established organisations.

This programme is constructed around you working in a team and running your own enterprise. Your learning is developed through team coaching processes rather than taught or lecture-based inputs. Learning opportunities and assessments are built around three key pillars:

• Enterprise management and growth.
• Team performance and leadership.
• Innovation and entrepreneurialism.

What you’ll learn

As a team entrepreneur on the programme, you will dictate your own learning, asking for coaching on subjects when needed. You will hone your ability to generate, evaluate, present and develop new product and service ideas. In addition, you will have the opportunity to build strategic plans, resource profiles and marketing strategies.

In the final year, the focus is on enterprise growth and high performance. With your team, you will explore how to grow your enterprises, now in their third year of operation, through finding new sources of funding and focusing on customer values and branding.

Foundation programme

Choosing to start your Aston journey with our foundation programme in business will help you develop specialist knowledge to ensure that you are fully prepared to study your chosen undergraduate course. During your foundation year, you’ll have excellent support from academics and group projects will give you the chance to meet new people, make new friends and build a network of peers who will share your university journey. We also have a Learning Development Centre that can provide additional support and offer pre-sessional English language programmes.

Post-study work visa

Graduate Immigration Route

Aston University welcomed the creation of a new Graduate Immigration Route which enables international students to remain in the UK for two years after you complete your studies to find work. This new post-study work visa applies to international students completing full-time undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

Find out more information about the Graduate Immigration Route.

Modules

Year 1

The first year of BSc (Hons) Business Enterprise Development is structured around the foundations of enterprise and team creation. This is supplemented with activities that develop your creativity and ideation and unleash your inner entrepreneur. There is also a module aimed at developing basic academic competencies to enable you to begin working on your various assignments throughout the year.

During the year you will hone your ability to generate, evaluate, present and develop new product and service ideas. You will also learn about and apply the concepts and principles of successful team development as you work alongside your team mates.

You will study modules in Enterprise Creation, Creating Effective Teams, Academic Effectiveness and Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Year 2

The second year builds on this to develop your managerial and leadership qualities. You will have the opportunity to build strategic plans, resource profiles and marketing strategies. You will also develop your knowledge of different forms of leadership and have the opportunity to apply these to projects within your team.  During this year you will also build your entrepreneurial skills through the exploration of networking, innovation labs, pitching new ideas, negotiating and learning the fundamentals of applied business research.

Modules will include Enterprise Management, Team Leadership, Applied Research and Developing Entrepreneurial Capability.

Year 3

In the final year the focus is on enterprise growth and high performance. Within your teams you will explore how to grow your enterprises, now in their third year of operation, through finding new sources of funding and a focus on customer value and branding. Within your teams you will research the traits of high performance teams and leaders and you will have the opportunity to conduct a thorough consultancy or market research project with an enterprise or on a new product or service of your choice.

Unlike other degrees, you will finish this programme, not just having learned about how to run an enterprise but having actually run one. Instead of lecture halls and seminar rooms you will work in an open plan office. Instead of lecturers or teachers you will have coaches and instead of lectures you will have team coaching sessions.

Modules include Enterprise Growth, Leading High Performance Teams and an Applied Research Project.

Typical offers:

A Levels

BBC (standard offer)

BCC (with EPQ or Core Maths minimum grade B)

BCC (contextual offer*)

IB

29 points overall in the IB diploma with 5, 5, 4 in 3 higher level subjects.

BTEC, Access & other

BTEC Extended Diploma - DDD (standard offer)

BTEC Extended Diploma - DDM (contextual offer*)

We accept the QAA-recognised Access Diploma which must consist of 45 credits at Level 3. You must obtain a minimum of 30 distinction and the rest must be at merit or distinction. Please note that we do not accept the English and Maths components within the Access qualification and you must meet the GCSE entry requirement.

The University also accepts the BTEC Level 3 National Extended Certificate/BTEC Level 3 Subsidiary Diploma and BTEC Level 3 National Diploma/BTEC Level 3 Diploma for entry onto degree programmes, provided that they are studied in combination with other qualifications that are equivalent to three full A2 Levels.

T Levels

The following T levels are accepted qualifications for this course:

• T-Level - Design, Surveying and Planning for Construction Grade D
• T-Level - Digital Production, Design and Production Grade D
• T-Level – Education and Childcare Grade D
• T-Level – Onsite Construction Grade D
• T-Level – Building Services Engineering for Construction Grade D
• T-Level – Digital Business Services Grade D
• T-Level – Digital Support Services Grade D
• T-Level – Health Grade D
• T-Level – Healthcare Science Grade D
• T-Level – Science Grade D

GCSEs

5 GCSE grades A*/9 – C/4 to include:

• GCSE Maths – grade C/4
• GCSE English Language or English Literature – grade C/4

Learn more about admission to this course

View our Admissions Policy.

Whilst the grades listed here are our entry requirements, we understand that predicted grades are only an estimate. We will therefore consider applicants with predicted grades that fall below these entry requirements if the application is of a high standard (however, initial offers will not be lower than stated above).

Entry onto our Foundation Programme may be offered as an alternative to the degree course if lower entry grades are achieved. Aston University welcomes applications from students with a wide range of qualifications from the UK and overseas, including combinations of qualifications. If your qualifications are not listed here and you wish to check whether they meet the entry requirements for this course, please contact the university.

Please note that General Studies does not contribute towards the UCAS points requirement but is welcomed as an additional qualification.

International students

Applicants whose first language is not English will be required to provide evidence of an English language qualification. Find out more about our English language requirements.

For more information about qualifications view our Aston in your country webpage. 

Aston University provides a range of opportunities for international students to join our community and study on our campus. A key part of our strategy is our relationships with teaching partners, providing multiple pathways to Aston. Find out more.

*For details on our Aston Ready contextual offer scheme, please see here.  

If you are shortlisted, you will receive an interview invitation which will be conducted virtually or on campus. The virtual / in person interview is a compulsory element of the application process and no offer will be made without a successful interview being conducted first. When applying, please ensure you include an up to date email and telephone number as this is important information for us if you are shortlisted for an interview. Further information about the interview and application process will be made available to you post-application.

Learning and teaching

The Business Enterprise Development degree at Aston puts experience and practice at the heart of the learning process. You will learn from doing tasks and interacting with your team, rather than being told information from a lecturer. This encourages deep learning of the key activities of enterprise development and management.

Assessment

All of the assessment on this programme is authentic, allowing you to demonstrate what you have achieved in other ways. Assessment is carried out through a variety of means, and focused on developing skills, competency and capacity to be entrepreneurial. While appropriate for some programmes that are focused on knowledge acquisition and beneficial for some people, exams are not used in the Business Enterprise Development programmes. 

All of your assessments will be practical and developmental. Tasks include:

• Creating career and personal development plans.
• Pitching for funding for your enterprise.
• Showcasing your teams’ projects.
• Maintaining your own reflective journal.
• Creating enterprise development plans.
• Ideation and new product/service challenges.
• Interviews.
• Presentation of a marketing campaign and an in-depth consultancy or market research project.

Personal development

This degree is like no other, particularly in preparing you for entering the real world of work. You will learn by doing and grow your confidence as well as skill sets in a practical learning environment, where you develop your own enterprise as part of a team. You will experience all aspects of enterprise development and management including teamworking and negotiating skills. On the forefront of new working practices, this degree will enable you to navigate the team-based environments now becoming commonplace working structures in organisations around the globe.

The United Kingdom government has confirmed that European Union (EU), other European Economic Area (EEA) and Swiss nationals commencing academic courses in England from August 2021 will no longer be charged the same tuition rates as home students. Further information can be found here.

Tuition fees for students are reviewed annually and may increase in subsequent years in line with inflation linked to the Retail Price Index (RPI) to take account of the University’s increased costs of delivering the Programme. Any such increase shall always be in accordance with the law. When undertaking a placement year, a placement year fee applies.

More information on fees and funding

Scholarships

At Aston University we are committed to supporting the most talented and hardworking students to achieve their potential by providing a range of scholarships to help lower tuition and living costs. Find out more about our scholarships here.

No other course develops the skills, attributes and competencies necessary to thrive in the modern enterprise environment like this programme. It will give you the confidence, resilience and experience to lead, manage or set up your own business, or to take your future in whatever direction you want.

This is a new approach to learning and collaboration which is more aligned to the working world. You will gain real-life experience and will be able to draw on real examples in interviews of what you have achieved rather than learnt.

International opportunities

This course is based on a module that was first released in Finland called Team Academy, and is now practiced in sixteen countries, with six UK universities offering it. Once you have enrolled on this course you are linked to the global Team Academy hubs. Current students are organising a trip to Strasburg to link with another academic to trial some business ideas and generate funds.

What jobs will this course prepare me for?

You will have the tools and insights to set up your own business, and a third of our graduates from this course go on to do just that – run their own company.

However, it is also a great course if you are looking to become ‘intrapreneurs’ – working for a company that assesses and promotes innovative product development and marketing, for instance.

“I chose this course because I needed to be more hands on in my learning, which is exactly what this course is.  The skills gained from this course are also more easily applied to real life situations too.” 

Tejas Patel

BSc Business Enterprise Development

Why study the Business Enterprise Development degree at Aston University?

If you prefer to ‘learn by doing’ and have an interest in setting up your own business, or want to gain real-life insight into the workings of a start-up as well as the skills and knowledge involved, this course is for you!

You will develop knowledge and skills across the breadth of business enterprise development through learning-by-doing. From the way you are taught, through to the way you are assessed (eg. no exams, practical learning, understanding and demonstrating what you have achieved).

What kind of jobs does a degree in Business Enterprise Development lead to?

No other course will develop the skills needed to thrive in modern business like this one. You will develop a wealth of transferable skills and the confidence, resilience and experience to lead, manage or set up your own enterprise, or to take your future career in whatever direction you like, whether that’s running your own business or operating as an ‘intrapreneur’ working for someone else.

Why Aston Business School?

Aston Business School is amongst the top 1 per cent of business schools in the world to have triple accreditation. All of this means we really value your learning experience and the skills you develop and demonstrate as part of your course.