Our events team were delighted to organise a two day inward study visit for 10 Korean visitors, as part of British Council Korea’s ‘Social Investment is GREAT’ campaign on 2-4th December 2015.
The group flew in from a three day visit in London to end their week of learning about the current social enterprise scene and support in the UK, particularly for start-ups. With diverse interests among the group from government, intermediaries, social investors and finance leaders and private sector representatives supporting social enterprises including higher education institutions and incubator/accelerator organisation, the programme had a lot to fit in.
The Scottish landscape
On this whirlwind tour the group learned about the landscape in Scotland through the lens of the census; government support from Just Enterprise and Ready for Business LLP; educational support from Caledonian University and Social Enterprise Academy; funding and investment support from Resilient Scotland, BIIS and DSL Business Finance and start-up support from Firstport concluding with a visit to Vital Spark in Dunoon; one of three start-up incubators being launched in the Highlands by Firstport and Inspiralba supported by Highlands and Islands Enterprise.
After an intense week of learning, the group were relishing the thought of venturing out into the fresh air. Although, there was much trepidation in our events team as they led the delegation to Dunoon, by ferry, on the day Storm Desmond was due to arrive. Thankfully good old Desmond treated our visitors kindly, allowing safe return passage with only one green jowled passenger.
At the end of the visit, the group was sad to leave after such a fleeting visit with promises to return to Scotland and continue conversations with the many practitioners, academics and start-ups they met. We look forward to future relations and hosting the next visit to Scotland.
Case study from Youngjoo Kim, Project Director, Society and Science, British Council Korea
We wanted to organize a 2.5-day visit programme to Glasgow for a group of Korean policymakers and senior managers to understand the Scottish social economy scene and to seek potential partnerships between the countries and organizations.
Korea is a fast-paced developing country in the social economy scene, so the requirements and expectations that our programme participants can have, can be very demanding.
However, CEIS organized a very effective programme, covering all aspects of the social economy by engaging top level organizations and key people in the sector. The visit also included a short field trip, which the participants appreciated very much and found valuable to understand the overall environment and specific challenges some social enterprises face due to their locale. The meetings and discussions inspired participants with them wanting to collaborate and work further with the partners in Scotland. Although it was only a 2.5 days visit, we feel like we’ve actually achieved and gained from a week long programme, and yet no one ever felt tired!
CEIS successfully fulfilled and exceeded our requirements, which made the overall programme much richer than expected. This was only possible because CEIS has built up such a strong reputation within the sector and is recognized as a reliable partner.All the participants in our programme have expressed a lot of gratitude to CEIS. It also showed our Korean partners that the British Council works with the most reliable and professional partners in the UK giving us more credibility.
In addition, the Korean partners were impressed and appreciated how extensive a network CEIS has, in terms of the key players in the sector, which they could not have reached if it were not for CEIS.
“Our organization should learn from the British Council and CEIS in how to organise this kind of programme. We would not have been able to cover as much as CEIS did in 2.5 days and yet it did not feel like too much”
Mr. Jonggak Kim, Director, Korea Social Enterprise Promotion Agency (KOSEA) Group participant
CEIS Events are experienced in organising inward and outward visit programmes; creating innovative study visits tailored to client’s specifications, fully managing travel, meals and accommodation, study and cultural visits and translation/interpretation requirements. If you would like to organise a study visit, contact our Events team today.