BSc Molecular Biology with Entrepreneurship

The unit examines the ways that entrepreneurs (or intrapraneurs) assess potential business opportunities using a range of simple business tools and models. The unit encourages students to make reasoned business decisions based on evidence available to them that may help them start their own businesses and/or increase their employability.

This unit cannot be studied with MCEL30031.

The unit aims to:
•    To explore the role of entrepreneurs in society
•    To examine the processes involved in taking an idea and developing it into a business proposition
•    To understand the market for a business proposition and how to position the proposition within that market
•    To inspire students to passionately embrace enterprise as an essential component of their development

The unit focuses on analysing the steps needed to take an idea and shape it into a viable business proposition. The unit looks specifically at the entrepreneurial process - i.e. how an entrepreneur assesses an opportunity, the resources and the team available to develop a sustainable business strategy.
The importance of entrepreneurship (both economically and socially) is covered and reference is made to enterprise within existing organizations (denoted intrapreneurship).
The following will be covered:
Enterprise and the Knowledge Economy

The External Environment

Opportunity Recognition and Evaluation

Introduction to Marketing
Market Research Processes

Business Strategy

Business Models

Social Enterprise

Entrepreneurs, Resources and Teams

Lectures
The unit will be delivered as a series of lectures with case studies and in-class activities for students to work on both alone and in small informal groups.

Summative assessments: Business Report 500 words (20%)
Examination 2 hours (80%)

•    Attending lectures, joining discussions about case studies and doing short work tasks set within the lecture session.
•    Your lecturer will reply to brief individual questions at the end of each lecture session, if there are a few minutes to spare.
•    Your lecturer will provide brief replies to your e-mailed enquiry.
•    Your lecturer may feedback messages to the whole class via Blackboard if the point that you have raised could be of benefit to the whole class.

Reading References

Main Texts

Lowe, Robin, and Sue Marriott. Enterprise: Entrepreneurship and innovation. Routledge, 2012.

Recommended Reading

Johnson, G., Whittington, R., Regnér, P., Angwin, D., & Scholes, K. (2020). Exploring strategy. Pearson UK..

Malhotra, Naresh, Dan Nunan, and David Birks. Marketing research: An applied approach. Pearson, 2017.

Kotler, Philip, and Gary Armstrong. Principles of marketing. Pearson education, 2010.
Doyle, Peter, and Philip Stern. Marketing management and strategy. Pearson Education, 2006.

2nd year students are welcome to take this unit.

This unit runs in both semester one and semester two. Please choose only one semester in which you wish to take this unit.

Note: This unit can not be studied with MCEL30031.

For Academic Year 2024/25

Updated: March 2024

Approved by: March UG Committee