Any review of Business and Community Engagement activity needs to identify if there is a strategy for the activity and a senior manager with overall responsibility for the activity. The strategy could be a dedicated strategy, or it could be catered for by specific mention in a strategy with a wider or overall scope. The review should seek to identify, even where a strategy exists, whether the resourcing and support of this type of activity is catered for by its inclusion in related strategies such as any Financial, HR, Marketing and IT strategies.

Find out more about Policy & Strategy

Assessing the suitability of business processes and the technological systems that support them is a major focus of the review. Much of the information to allow an assessment to take place will come from the interview process, carried out with both core business teams and managers and practitioners within the Business and Community Engagement arena.

Find out more about Processes & Systems

The 2009 Embedding BCE project found examples of central co-ordinating units in all of the partners, although their functions varied considerably. Some aspects of Business and Community Engagement may require a dedicated central co-ordination role. Examples of these are Science Parks, Innovation Centres, Spin-out co-ordination, conference centres.

Find out more about Central Co-ordinating Units

It will be necessary to identify how Business and Community Engagement activities are resourced internally in addition to how income streams from such activities are dealt with. The nature of services provided by the central Finance Department must be identified, together with the sources of such functions if not provided by the central department. These could be services such as assistance with costing, invoicing, payment for goods and services to the university, release of funding to other budgets as required from central or external funding sources, control and audit functions and financial reporting mechanisms.

Find out more about Finance

The use of IT, the systems being used, the nature of their use, how they are developed and supported and an evaluation of any issues arising should be a part of any review of Business and Community Engagement. The need for systematic access to information and storage of data is widespread and vastly diverse across the landscape of activity that makes up Business and Community Engagement.

Find out more about IT & Information Systems

Facilities Management teams can include various functions and this is not consistent across the sector. In this resource we are mainly concerned with the Estates provision, maintenance and use, including buildings and grounds both on campus and single off-campus sites such as museums, shop and office premises used by institutions, conference facilities etc.

Find out more about Facilities Management

In the Human Resources section we will consider not just those aspects of existing functions of the Human Resources Department but also the human factors - opportunities, demands, perceptions and barriers of cultures and climates within sector organisations that affect the abilities or willing engagement of staff to become involved in Business and Community Engagement.

Find out more about Human Resources