Successful support programmes that have helped hundreds of businesses across the region, return to set organisations on the path to recovery and growth.
Cumbria Forum and Lancashire Forum help Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) across the North to grow with the help of a supportive peer network, a programme of interactive workshops and a range of facilitated learning experiences.
Since they were first launched, the programmes have helped a combined total of more than 450 businesses, and have helped those businesses to create more than 100 new jobs. After further funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the next cohorts are now being recruited.
Now delivered online, the fully-funded programmes have been adapted to best fit the 'post-pandemic world' and will be delivered over the course of a four-month period. Lancashire Forum is due to start on 8 June 2021 and Cumbria Forum will start on 15 June 2021.
Matt Hutchinson, Project Manager at Lancaster University Management School, said: "It has been a very different time for businesses and their leaders; they have had to change, adapt and become more flexible - which is exactly what we have done with our own business programmes.
"While we have adapted and shifted the focus of the programme in some areas, the principles of both Cumbria and Lancashire Forum remain the same. We are still ready to work with and support SMEs to help them innovate, develop and importantly, grow - which is as important now as it has ever been."
The new and reformed Lancashire and Cumbria Forum cover topics such as business resilience, innovation and leadership under an overarching theme of 'Responsible Recovery'; helping leaders plan for a business which not just economically successful, but is socially and environmentally responsible.
Delivered as part of Boost; Lancashire's business growth hub and Cumbria Growth Hub, the Forums offer a safe place for leaders to develop their own skills as well as develop their organisations with the help of the latest research, leading business experts and world-class academics from Lancaster University Management School (LUMS), along with benefiting from the practical experience of peers.
