The student-led Business Clinic within Liverpool Business School was established to provide a wide range of support options to SMEs, start-ups, and not-for-profit organisations across the Liverpool City Region. As a modern civic university, LJMU is committed to serving its people and communities, and the Business Clinic plays a vital role as a resource that businesses can access to help address the challenges they face moving forward.
We are delighted that the Business Clinic is now embedded within an even greater number of undergraduate programmes, playing a central role in both the curriculum and the student journey. The Clinic provides students with the opportunity to apply and develop their theoretical knowledge in a professional, real-world setting. To date, projects delivered for clients have included market planning, strategy development, diversification of products and services, market research, social media campaigns, and competitor analysis, amongst other valuable outputs that have supported new business opportunities. Our students consistently deliver innovative, creative, and fresh solutions to a wide variety of challenges.
Now entering its seventh year, the Business Clinic remains committed to the Principles of Responsible Management Education. We will continue to develop projects and collaborate with organisations focused on sustainability and digital transformation, ensuring our students have the opportunity to make meaningful contributions to businesses across the Liverpool City Region.
This year, we would like to extend our sincere thanks to:
• The outstanding staff working in the Business Clinic – academic colleagues who have innovated within the curriculum, and our project officers who have built and sustained excellent external relationships.
• The 715 students who have supported 111 projects through their hard work and dedication.
• Our 10 business consultant mentors, whose weekly commitment has been invaluable in helping consultancy groups deliver high-quality, impactful work.
• And finally, to the 75 businesses and organisations who have entrusted us with their projects – your partnership makes this experience possible, and we are deeply grateful for your support.
Professor Track Dinning, Liverpool Business School
STATISTICS
Over the last two years we have seen an increase in the number students, projects and organisations going through the Business Clinic, and 2024/25 I am pleased to report was no different. Throughout 2024/25, 715 of our students who worked across 111 projects with the Business Clinic supporting 75 organisations within the Liverpool City Region.
No. of organisations within the different regions supported by the Business Clinic
Note: Several organisations worked with more than one group of students, on different projects
In 2024/25, the Business Clinic delivered outstanding impact, supporting more than 75 organisations across the Liverpool City Region through 111 projects, amounting to a total of 85,800 consultancy hours. The Business Clinic commissioned a third-party report to validate its’ SROI. The sources evidence the high professional value and social return generated by student-led activity.
Building on this success, Liverpool Business School has expanded its influence internationally. In partnership with the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education (NCEE), we now lead a global interest group for business clinics, advising universities worldwide. Over the past two years, Liverpool Business School faculty have collaborated with academics in Dubai and Malaysia to establish student-led clinics modelled on our approach. In 2024–2025 alone, these international hubs supported over 30 organisations through more than 30 project teams, engaging an additional 300 students. These partnerships have also secured British Council funding, enabling further growth and development.
The Business Clinic is embedded within both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Liverpool Business School. Our students tell us:
“Deciding to take on the Cains consultancy project was a risk, but I am glad I took it. Consultancy can be difficult, but it has taught me to learn, adapt and also not be afraid of pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. This is my final year in education and I’m glad I took a consultancy module instead of the standard dissertation. LJMU gives you opportunities to grow as an individual and the Cains consultancy module was definitely one of these opportunities. I would recommend it to anyone.”
FINAL YEAR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT, BA (HONS) MARKETING
“I have learned that the end goal imagined when starting the project is not realistic in real-world working and through working with the company, visiting their locations every week, meeting staff throughout their departments, and conducting thorough research how different the real-world outcome is. The business clinic allowed me to provide meaningful impact to a local charity.”
FINAL YEAR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT, BSC (HONS) BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
“I’m very thankful to LJMU, my colleagues and Viz Box for this opportunity as I learnt a lot about myself during this project as I was able to develop confidence and apply skills I’d learned during my studies through collectively creating and then presenting the business model to the NHS at the end of the project showcasing the value the project will bring. I can’t speak highly enough of Carl & Vizbox as adding value to a business can be a very difficult thing especially for a VR company developing a project to improve stroke treatments, the support they provided us and the meetings we were able to be a part of made this whole experience feel very natural and really enjoyable.”
FINAL YEAR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT, BA (HONS) BUSINESS WITH FINANCE
Clients who want to work with the Business Clinic are asked to outline an initial project brief. Then, working alongside one of our Business Clinic project officers the brief is developed to include not only clear aims and objectives but also a set of outcomes to ensure that the clients’ expectations can be met. The majority of the projects are delivered over a 10-week period with student groups meeting on a weekly basis. The student groups are guided by the academic member of staff on a weekly basis. We also work with 10 Business Consultants, who are attached to a group and provide weekly support to those students to deliver a high-quality project for the client.
Our clients tell us:
“I’ve been really impressed with the team and their overall desire to make improvements to our football club. They’ve been incredibly independent and shown outside-of-the-box thinking to come up with some great ideas to impact us now and in the future. The communication has been clear throughout, and I can tell they are really bought into what we are trying to achieve. Honestly, I can’t fault them, and I am really grateful they have come on board during a pretty pivotal time in our club’s development.”
ABBY POPE, LIVERPOOL FEDS WFC
“The project journey has been excellent since the students were very proactive and enthusiastic on the subject. I must say they continue to show the same level of energy during the whole duration. I also appreciate their earlier understanding of retail space through their earlier experiences. This helped a lot to create interest and excitement.”
AJAY AGGARWAL, 100WATTS
“Their enthusiasm, diligence, attentiveness and creativity has been exemplary. Their work will be of enormous benefit to the organisation both in the short term and longer term, in helping us focus on some key strategic areas, backed up by their in-depth research and findings.”
KEITH LOVELADY, MERSEY YOUTH SUPPORT TRUST
COMPANY OVERVIEW:
My Event Pod is a B2B smart digital event management solution for event pros, venues, vendors, organisers to collaborate and plan any successful event all-in-one place. My Event Pod’s USP is that they offer a unified solution where event vendors and professionals can manage the client flow in one place, whereas their competitors only manage the event but not the client flow. They focus on event suppliers, venues and spaces for parties, weddings, meetings, corporate events and shows.
PROJECT:
To create an effective go-to market strategy to provide and drive a successful launch into the UK market as well as raise brand awareness.
STUDENT QUOTE
“I have found the project really useful in working with a real life client and being able to solve a problem for them through applying knowledge and models we have learnt at university and then applying this to the project. The experience was useful in receiving consistent feedback for where we can improve and enhancing our teamwork skills when working as a group. LJMU gives you opportunities to grow as an individual and the consultancy module was definitely one of these opportunities. I would recommend it to anyone.”
FINAL YEAR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT, BSC (HONS) BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
CLIENT QUOTE
“We’re thrilled with the outcome and are eagerly looking forward to our upcoming launch. It’s been a rewarding experience for us, witnessing students apply their theoretical knowledge to real-world scenarios and seeing their growth in employability skills”
OLA SULAIMAN, CTO, MY EVENT POD
COMPANY OVERVIEW:
PelliTec® is a novel blister prevention pad developed in the United Kingdom. The pad has been shown to be effective in reducing the occurrence of blisters and helping them heal. Product trials amongst walkers, athletes, sports players and military personnel have been very successful. They are now in the final stages of developing a new product targeted at prosthetics users, particularly amputees. There are approximately 250k lower limb amputees in the UK the majority of whom have a prosthetic. Irritation and blistering are common problems with very few effective products available which offer sustainable relief. Made in China, the blister pad helps to prevent ‘pistoning’. They have undertaken a ‘proof of concept’ study which has received positive feedback.
PROJECT:
To develop a go-to-market strategy to assess the market potential of the pad for lower limb amputees – e.g. market size, growth potential, competition, route to market, pricing, how the product should be packaged.
CLIENT QUOTE
“Our team have read the student report and it is an excellent piece of work. It will certainly inform us over the next 12 months around our plans as we enter the amputee market. Can you please pass on our thanks to all the students.”
PETER BROXTON, MANAGING DIRECTOR, PELLITEC®
BUSINESS MENTOR QUOTE
‘Working with the LJMU Business Clinic and students on their annual consultancy projects has been highly rewarding, and enjoyable. As a mentor of the student business teams, I’ve enjoyed being able to share my own knowledge and experience as well as encourage the teams to draw on their own diverse experiences, skills, current knowledge, and creativity, to achieve the best possible outcomes for the businesses represented. It’s rewarding to see both the students and businesses gain so much value and growth from the process’.
BUSINESS MENTOR, CAROLINE GAVIN @4positivegrowth
In February of this academic year, 2025/26, in collaboration with the Global Alliance for Entrepreneurial Universities, Dr Track Dinning led a global symposium for universities to share practice of running similar clinics. The symposium led to a report, which is available on https:// ncee.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/NCEEBusinessClinicsReportv54063.pdf
Following the publication of the report and working alongside the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship’s Global Alliance for Entrepreneurial Universities, Liverpool Business School launched a global network for Business Clinic and experiential learning This network is now far reaching across UK and International universities, with the membership raisin and already over 50.
We are building on our previous work to track the value that the Business Clinic work can bring to an organisation within Liverpool City Region with a commitment to developing this value beyond just financial and what can be seen as that ‘extra pair of hands’. In the Business Clinic value is defined in its broadest terms and includes not only financial value but also social, cultural and environmental value. The broadening of the term ‘value’ allows projects to meet a broad range of business needs and it is our intention to develop clusters of projects around these different types of value over the next few years. By working closely with the Liverpool City Region business community these project clusters will be developed so that dedicated multi-stakeholder special interest groups are formed and active communities of practice incubated.
To evaluate the types of value being created over the next year, it is our intention to develop a framework from which we can measure the impact of the Business Clinic work for businesses and students. For example, outcomes could include changes in circumstances, behaviour, capacity, awareness or attitude (Social Value UK 2023). The resulting evaluations will allow the Business Clinic to channel and review its resource allocation effectively. This will ensure that in our annual planning cycle resources are allocated intentionally for maximum impact. This impact will allow the Business Clinic to provide valuable contributions to both academic practice and theory not only regionally but also nationally and internationally.