Enterprise Evolution, part of Liverpool-based social enterprise The Women’s Organisation, was invited to address a conference of sector and educational leaders in Kiev

A Liverpool enterprise consultancy advised a conference in Ukraine on how to improve entrepreneurial skills throughout the country’s creative industries.

Enterprise Evolution, part of Liverpool-based social enterprise The Women’s Organisation, was invited to address a conference of sector and educational leaders in Kiev, earlier this month.

The event, Higher Education and Enterprise Skills Development for the Creative Industries Ukraine Creative Spark Policy Forum, was organised in collaboration with the British Council, the body responsible for improving cultural and educational links with other countries.

Last year it reached more than 75m people face-to-face and in excess of 758m people online. The council launched its Creative Spark programme in 2018 as a five-year initiative to support international university and institutional partnerships to develop enterprise skills and creative economies across seven countries in central Asia – Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine.

The first year of the programme planned to support more than 10,000 students and young entrepreneurs. Initiatives included the development of partnerships between universities and creative institutions in the UK with programmes in the seven countries.

The conference, which the British Council hopes will become an annual event, involved around 100 experts, including policy makers from ministries, agencies and funding bodies. They looked at mapping policy areas for enterprise skills development for the creative industries, the changing role of higher education in enterprise skills development, and collaboration for better and faster policy development.

Enterprise Evolution offers internationally-recognised consultants who can add entrepreneurial value to businesses and organisations. Its work includes long-established links with universities throughout China in encouraging entrepreneurial growth.

Its experts bring a wealth of experience in building on innovative practices in enterprise education, entrepreneurship support, equality and diversity, women’s economic development, project monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment.

Enterprise Evolution principal consultant, Alison Price, delivered the address at the conference in Kiev. She said: “The creative industries are vital to any economy and graduate level involvement can be key to scaling up and creating growth ambition across this sector.

“Connecting up our universities and our young people is so important, so it’s a real privilege to be asked to share our UK enterprise practice internationally.”