UCILXXXX and UCILXXXX
Enterprising Futures: Skills to Succeed in a Dynamic Global Economy
- Semester 1
- Online delivery
- 10 credits and 20 credits
Enterprise is evolving.
Learn how to navigate and succeed in an ever-changing world.
In this unit, you will explore how enterprising thinking can help you respond to uncertainty, identify opportunities, and create responsible value in organisational and societal contexts.
Through online activities, applied research, and reflective learning, you will build practical skills, develop your critical judgement, and gain the confidence to shape your own enterprising future -whether as a founder, an intrapreneur, or a professional driving change within an organisation.
Designed specifically for online learning, offering a unique interactive experience.
This unit is accessible to undergraduate students from all disciplines.
About
Each generation defines enterprise in relation to its own challenges, opportunities and priorities.
Today’s students face an uncertain world shaped by employment pressures, business start-up barriers, global instability, supply chain disruption, climate change and widening inequality. As a result, enterprise education can no longer focus only on starting businesses or improving productivity. It must also help students think critically about how organisations create value, who benefits from that value, and how enterprise can respond responsibly to social and environmental challenges.
This unit helps you build the skills, confidence and judgement to thrive in this environment. You’ll combine theory with practical learning in enterprise and entrepreneurship, alongside independent research, reflection, online activities and your own chosen projects.
You’ll explore how enterprise can support your career goals while also responding to ethical, social and sustainability challenges.
Whether you want to start your own venture, drive change within an organisation, or simply think more creatively and proactively in your career, this unit gives you the tools and frameworks to do so. By the end, you’ll be better equipped to shape your own enterprising future.
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Unit details
What should I know about this unit?
UCIL xxxx - Entrepreneur: Innovator and Risk-taker
This unit will be delivered online in semester 2?
- Level 2
- 10 or 20 Credits
- Alliance Manchester Business School
This unit forms part of the Enterprise Challenge.
This unit supports you in developing the enterprising competencies, confidence and judgement needed in a changing world. It combines conceptual and practical learning in enterprise and entrepreneurship with opportunities for independent research, reflection, online activity and self-selected experiential projects. You will explore how enterprise can support personal career goals while also addressing ethical, social and sustainability challenges.
The unit aims to:
- Provide students from any background with concepts, frameworks, and tools relevant to enterprise and entrepreneurship (EE), enabling them to contribute to innovation and change in a range of contexts.
- Enhance real-world EE learning through the development of relevant competencies and skills required in the AI age to turn problems into opportunities.
- Create opportunities for students to discuss, practise, and reflect on the value of being enterprising and entrepreneurial, and on the wider impact of enterprise on society, at both conceptual and practical levels.
- Foster an appreciation of the strategy, processes, and operations involved in financially, socially, and environmentally sustainable enterprises.
By the end of the unit, students should be able to:
Knowledge and understanding
- Apply entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial learning to different organisational contexts.
- Critically analyse the importance of enterprise in society.
- Develop and present suitable EE approaches and strategies.
Intellectual skills
- Undertake independent research to inform practice within their own subject discipline.
- Critically evaluate and reflect on their career development objectives.
- Create strategies for the personal development of EE mindset and competencies for EE action.
- Reflect on learning from real-world enterprising and entrepreneurial experiences.
Practical skills
- Plan and solve problems appropriately in entrepreneurial and innovative settings.
- Deploy effective networking and persuasive communication skills.
Transferable skills and personal qualities
- Develop written and oral presentation skills through structured business reports and elevator pitches.
- Work independently and share learning online with peers to develop mindset and capabilities for entrepreneurial success in a complex and changing environment.
- Additional for 20 credit only: Communicate the development of an opportunity clearly and coherently through visual, verbal, and digital media for specialist and non-specialist audiences.
- Becoming enterprising: mindsets, motivations and future possibilities
- Entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship and enterprise in a changing world
- Spotting opportunities: problems, gaps, trends and unmet needs
- Creating opportunities: creativity, effectuation and idea development
- Networks that matter: people, partnerships and social capital
- Building value propositions that speak to real needs
- From idea to action: testing desirability, feasibility and viability
- Understanding costs, pricing and financial logic
- Bootstrapping and resourcing early-stage ideas
- Purpose, profit and responsible enterprise
- Sustainable and social enterprise in practice
- Business models: creating, delivering and capturing value
- Communicating enterprise ideas through reports and pitches
- Reflecting on your enterprising future and career development
The unit draws on different approaches to enterprise and entrepreneurship (EE) education, including learning about, through, and for enterprise. It combines structured online content, independent research, and action-oriented learning, enabling you to engage with both conceptual ideas and applied opportunity development.
You’ll have the chance to develop your enterprising mindset and start working on your own business or social impact idea. This could be entrepreneurial, intrapreneurial (within an organisation), socially focused, or freelance - depending on your interests, your degree background, and your future goals.
As a fully online unit, you’ll learn through pre-recorded content, guided activities, structured reflection, discussion boards, and independent work on your idea. These activities are designed to help you generate and develop ideas, test your assumptions, build confidence using enterprise tools and frameworks, and connect your work to your wider personal, professional, and societal goals.
You can also choose to access extra support from the Masood Entrepreneurship Centre, including the Get Started, Freelancer, Social Impact, and Startup pathways. This support is optional and sits outside the unit requirements, but it can be useful if you want to take your idea further.
All students complete a short formative idea submission early in the unit, either as a 2-minute voice-over presentation or a 200-word written submission.
10-credit version
- Structured Business Report
2000 words | 80%
- Reflection on EE journey and personal development
500 words | 20%
20-credit version
- Structured Business Report
2000 words | 40%
- Reflection on EE journey and personal development
1000 words | 20% - Voice-over Presentation
10 minutes | 40%
- Dr Suneel Kunamaneni
- Dr Rob Martin
UCIL units are designed to be accessible to undergraduate students from all disciplines.
UCIL units are credit-bearing and it is not possible to audit UCIL units or take them for additional/extra credits. You must enrol following the standard procedure for your School when adding units outside of your home School.
If you are not sure if you are able to enrol on UCIL units you should contact your School Undergraduate office. You may wish to contact your programme director if your programme does not currently allow you to take a UCIL unit.
How to enrol
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Enrolment using the Course Selection System
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Enrolment via your School
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Please get in touch with the UCIL team at ucil@manchester.ac.uk if you have any questions.