Prof Kurt Allman
PVC Executive Dean – Faculty of Science, Business and Enterprise
Kurt holds a personal Chair in Enterprise, and is Executive Dean for the Faculty of Science Business and Enterprise. Kurt is also University Pro Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise, and is responsible for business engagement and commercialisation activities as well as general executive duties across the Faculty's teaching, research and enterprise activities. His business engagement portfolio is extensive, having worked with over 5,000 SMEs as part of European Structural Investment Fund initiatives. Total grant activities amount to £22M, and have included some of the largest business support programmes in Europe (HEI to SME). In addition to this, he has worked on on £6.7M of grant funding associated with regional enterprise, incubation, and Information Society initiatives. Funders have included ERDF, ESF, EPSRC, HEFCE, ESRC and STFC amongst others.
Recently he was Chair and Director of the Universities Economic Development Unit, a partnership between 7 of the NW's universities. He is a member of the Mersey Dee Alliance, A cross-border partnership that supports strategic economic growth across North East Wales, West Cheshire and the Wirral. He sat on the Cheshire and Warrington Local Enterprise Partnership Skills Board, and was Board lead for the Accelerate Project, a £6M CoVid recovery project that supported management skills, resilience and digital upskilling. Kurt is the University's lead on its collaboration with the region's Institute of Technology - a partnership with 4 colleges and 2 HEIs.
Prior to his current role, Kurt was Director of Keele Business School, and significantly involved in its redevelopment as part of a University Enterprise Zone initiative, and previously he was Associate Dean Enterprise, Engagement and Employability at the University of Salford. During this time the School won the coveted Times Higher Education Awards 2014 Business School of the Year award for a step change in its business engagement and graduate employability profile. Prior to this he spent much of his career at the University of Manchester and the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology in the field of science enterprise.
Kurt has taught a number of different modules across his career, principally within the domains of science enterprise and organisational strategy.
Notable Modules
New Entrepreneurial Ventures. This was supported by Daresbury Science Innovation Campus in Cheshire, and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire. This introduced Masters students to the challenges that technology entrepreneurs encounter in developing high-tech, capital intensive technology. This module won significant accolade from policy makers, and was part of a HEIF 4 best practice example for technology transfer. This, alongside a number of other projects enabled significant grant support to continue this ground breaking engagement.
Research methods and dissertation module: This module was the University's largest module - with around 900 students per annum. The module introduced appropriate research techniques and methodologies to Level 7 students. It also prepared them for the differing dissertation and project routes; Dissertation, Work Placement, Internship, or Group Project. This was a novel and particularly complex module to deliver given its size, high proportion of sponsored students (international), and 6 intake model. My contribution was improved outcomes, great student satisfaction, and improved student recruitment given the pathways options.
MBA strategy and organisational change module. This capstone module was delivered for the Senior Leaders Degree Apprenticeship. It worked with over 150 senior leaders to help them initiate and implement innovative strategies and business models within the region's public and private enterprises.
Kurt is primarily interested in nascent entrepreneurship, graduate enterprise, high-technology entrepreneurship, and triple-helix processes in regional economic development.
Kurt has supervised 7 PhDs through to completion, as well as other 30 research masters students.
Working collaboratively Kurt has been involved in supporting research impact. Notable impacts have been engaging research into SME networks, decision making, inclusion and wellbeing. This research underpinned the refocusing of large-scale SME intervention and support programmes to better engage and cultivate relationships with a diverse range of hard-to-reach entrepreneurs and SME owner-managers. These activities secured £37.74m in grants that enabled tailored support to 1,632 SMEs over a 6 year period, resulting in 312.3 new and 113.9 safeguarded jobs, 100 innovations, improvements in women and ethnic minority entrepreneurs receiving support, improved sustainability.
Another multi-year research and engagement project supported parts of the West Midlands industrial conurbation, where there were pronounced economic challenges:- low levels of innovation, productivity, and leadership, particularly acute within the region’s SMEs. Research undertaken led directly to the establishment of a novel, multi-stage business support programme for SMEs, designed to tackle the diverse and pervasive innovation barriers across the Local Economic Partnership (LEP) region. The research enabled programmes to forge effective HEI-enterprise engagement mechanisms, create networks and routes to innovation leading to market impact, and challenged conventional business practices through innovative pedagogical tools and techniques. 292 businesses were positively impacted, resulting in 76 new jobs, 92 new product or service innovations, 253 student-academic projects (at 100 hours each) in 151 SMEs, realising £4.1M in Gross Value Added (GVA).
Salmon, U. and Allman, K. (2019), "Innovation in family firms: an empirical taxonomy of owners using a mixed methods approach", Journal of Family Business Management, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 20-39.
Rmu Susantha Udagedara & Kurt Allman (2019) Organizational Dynamics and Adoption of Innovations: A Study within the Context of Software Firms in Sri Lanka, Journal of Small Business Management, 57:2, 450-475.