A team from the University of Ulster were the outright winners of FLUX 2009 hosted in Plymouth. FLUX is the UK's largest inter-university enterprise event drawing the most enterprising teams together to compete against each other in an enterprise challenge.

Dr Cecilia Hegarty of NICENT who co-ordinated the competition at the University of Ulster explained how the winning team beat off stiff competition from 29 other universities from across the UK with their e-business idea.

A University of Ulster entrepreneurship lecturer with NICENT has won plaudits for research into how universities should improve how the subject is taught.

Questioning the notion of the overnight “graduate entrepreneur”, Dr Cecilia Hegarty says evidence points to the need for intensive focus on developing students’ life-skills and approach to work so as to build capacity and ingenuity that may flourish over a period of years.

Working with a colleague, Colin Jones from the University of Tasmania, they examined whether current entrepreneurship teaching has limitations in helping students make the transition to being successful business people.  Their study entitled: Graduate Entrepreneurship: More Than Child’s Play, has been highly commended at the Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2009. Each year, a panel of top academics and managers choose the best from the most outstanding journals submitted publishing group, Emerald.