Dr Inge Hill

Dr Inge Hill

Biography 

Senior Lecturer in Business Strategy.

 

University responsibilities

I am a passionate researcher and keen to develop our researcher community. I am currently elected Council member at the prestigious British Academy of Management responsible for early-mid-career researcher capacity building and co-chair of our Strategy Research Special Interest group, after having chaired it for three years. I established a research culture for business research here at the RAU and run the Rural Economy Research Exchange Seminar series.

My research focuses on how entrepreneurial practices are accomplished, investigating micro-level entrepreneurial practices in urban and rural economies. I am a well published author, including in Local Economy, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, and the International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research. I have published sole-authored books and am included in several edited books. My publications are included on the core reading list for entrepreneurship-as-practice research (https://www.entrepreneurshipaspractice.com/). While I regularly undertake quantitative research, my passion lies in qualitative research, particularly, in employing ethnographic methods.

I advocate firmly for social change, with the goal of making entrepreneurship skills a part of fundamental citizenship aptitudes (Hill, 2016, Foreword). I have influenced education policy around Higher Education enterprise and entrepreneurship since 2003, through founding initiatives, acting as an adviser to Policy Reports, and writing an innovative textbook (Hill, 2016). Through my work as a Director of Enterprise Educators UK, I have actively influenced the establishment of entrepreneurship education as a professional career (https://www.enterprise.ac.uk/our-directors/). I am frequently sought after for my expertise on enterprise education and support. I receive regular invitations to speak at inter-/national events, in 2021, as a panel speaker at the Westminster Business Forum, and keynote speaker at the Learning and Teaching Conference for the British Academy of Management 2021.

I am an award winning academic teacher, SFHEA, and the 2020 British Academy of Management award holder for the Experienced Teaching Practitioner. My teaching is always up-to-date, making sure to include new leading-edge topics–for example, I have extended my passion for sustainable business to all my teaching and supervision, addressing the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/) and Netzero.

As a former entrepreneur, I fully understand the research and development needs of SMEs, as well as the challenges posed by the pandemic, Brexit and the sustainability agenda. Through my 12 years of experience–as a non-executive director for non-profits, former director of SMEs, running my own start-ups for seven years, have a wealth of practical expertise to bring to my research, knowledge exchange, research-led and practice informed learning and teaching. I hold a Fellowship with the Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurship, and the Royal Society of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.

In addition to the above I hold the following positions:

Research

Google Scholar: Google scholar profile

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Inge_Hill

Research interests

My expertise is based in the processes of starting and developing businesses. My research always considers the current marketplace and industry developments; it aims to make a contribution to unveiling the deeper meaning of these changes, such as the ongoing shift to labour fragmentation and self-employment. I have seen this shift becoming the biggest factor in reorganising labour markets and their spatial locations in urban and rural areas in the last decade. I am currently dedicated to raising the profile and understanding of the socio-economic impact of creative cultural industries and business support. I ensure my research has practical implications.

I have secured over £320k of external funding for research and knowledge exchange activities.

I draw knowledge from the many expert and specialist sources in my network. I am the RAU lead for NICRE, the National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise. The RAU is in partnership with  Gloucester University, and we are part of a university consortium, led by Newcastle University, collaborating also with Warwick University.

I build on 10 years of supervising food and farming business related dissertations across the world - from the UK, to the EU, China and India. I am an experienced evaluator, and specialise in social impact and social value assessments.

PhD supervision

I strive to diversify PhD supervision for the RAU in these topic areas:

  • New venture creation – insights and developments
  • Creative industry entrepreneurship
  • The economic value of the creative cultural industry sector for the rural economy
  • Sustainable business - myth, add on or the new way of doing business?
  • SDG’s and Netzero for SMEs
  • Rural businesses and their support needs
  • Social enterprises’ impact for societal well-being and economic outputs in the rural economy

I am an active external PhD assessor, most recently as PhD rapporteur and defence committee member for an entrepreneurship-as-practice PhD at Toulouse Management School, Toulouse University.

Knowledge exchange

I am committed to creating research that is relevant for our society and businesses, and ensure it has a positive impact on relevant fields. I have extended this achievement through my appointment as an evaluator for the Knowledge Exchange Concordat by Universities UK https://www.keconcordat.ac.uk/.

Named expert contributor to reports and articles: 

Times Higher Education, THE Campus (2022) Levelling up in the UK: How science, research and innovation can help us bring a stronger, more inclusive economy. Part of ‘Promoting public-private partnerships in ‘levelling up’ the UK’. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/promoting-publicprivate-partnerships-levelling-uk, last accessed 19-5-22. 

JISC and Emerge Education (2021). Employer-university collaboration. Report no.5. 

For the purpose of Knowledge Exchange,  I have written more widely on my research to ensure it is available to the public:

Currently I am lead editor for an edited book on ‘creative entrepreneurship in the 21st century’ (Emerald, two volumes) and a special issue on entrepreneurship-as-practice research with the Scandinavian Journal of Management.

Teaching

Teaching 

I am a dedicated, passionate and award winning academic teacher with over 25 years experience in Higher Education. Within my teaching I focus on creating responsible and impact aware future leaders. I am keen to prepare our students, and my co-learners, for the future of work. I hold two Master's degrees in Education and a number of accreditations for learning and teaching:

  • Senior Fellow with the Higher Education Academy (Advance HE)
  • Fellow with Enterprise Educators UK
  • Certified Management and Business Educator

I apply my expertise outside of the classroom to influence the wider sphere of learning and teaching. In 2020, my practice-led learning and teaching intervention ‘pop-up shop programme’ was awarded the Management Education Practice Award for Experienced Teaching Practitioners by the British Academy of Management. I am a strategic influencer of enterprise education, influencing enterprise policy since 2003. Most recently, as Director for Enterprise Educators UK, I help to improve teaching quality, saving academic teachers time by sharing resources on the ETCToolkit till 2021.

I am dedicated to providing the most relevant, theoretically informed and pedagogically applicable enterprise and sustainability education. This includes teaching sustainable business practices, addressing the UN Sustainable Development Goals for creating future entrepreneurial leaders. To learn more, refer to my many publications as listed below.

I currently teach various Master’s and MBA modules on sustainable business strategy, and under-graduate modules on strategy for business and agriculture.

In my teaching, I ensure to focus on direct employability impact, and my impact has led to the creation of over 25 start-ups and contributed to hundreds of other start-ups as a result of my teaching.

Teaching related publications

I am proud to be a leading member of the international teaching community, with my teaching related publications well renowned and cited worldwide. These include:

  • Hill, I. And Scott, J. (2020). Business ethics and sustainable business. In: Deakins, D. and Scott, J. (Eds), Entrepreneurship, A Contemporary and Global Approach, Chapter 9, pp. 200-227. London: Sage. (with four brand new case studies on sustainable business)
  • Hill, I., and Bass, T. (2019). Embedding emotional resilience and reflection in the curriculum – pop-up shops for comprehensive learning in times of austerity. In: Diver, A. (2019) Employable scholars in Higher Education: Challenges and choices in times of austerity. Chapter 26, pp. 415-428. Springer: Berlin / New York.
  • Hill, Inge. (2018) Birmingham City University. Using EntreComp to bring credibility to practical entrepreneurial learning activities, In: McCallum E., Weicht R., McMullan L., Price A., EntreComp into Action: get inspired, make it happen (M. Bacigalupo & W. O’Keeffe Eds.) , EUR 29105 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, pp. 86-87.
  • Hill, Inge. (2016). Start up. A Practice-led Guide to New Venture Creation. London: Palgrave MacMillan. https://www.macmillanihe.com/page/detail/StartUp/?K=9781137425836

Blogs on learning and teaching - Director’s blogs Enterprise Educators UK

Publications

Publications 

Peer reviewed research reports

Publications

My research focuses on two areas: making visible in urban and rural contexts

  • The impact of business support and
  • The socio-economic contribution of creative and cultural industries

Currently I am lead editor for an edited book on ‘creative entrepreneurship in the 21st century’ (Emerald, two volumes) and a special issue on entrepreneurship-as-practice research with the Scandinavian Journal of Management.

Academic journal articles (selection)

(see also research related blogs below)

Book chapters (selection) 

  • Hill,  I. and Munroe-Smith, A. (2023)(accepted). Researching entrepreneurship with Bourdieu. Designing and executing field work and analysing it. In: In: Higgins, D., Jones, P. W., Brentnall, C. And McGowan, P. (eds) Nurturing modalities of inquiry in Entrepreneurship Research. Bingley: Emerald. 
  • Jevnaker, B. H. and Hill, I. (2023, accepted) Heritage craft entrepreneuring in the wild: the role of entrepreneurial placemaking for rural creative start-ups. In: Hill, I., Elias, S., Dobbs, S., and Jones, P. (2023)(eds) Creative and cultural industry entrepreneurship in the 21st century. London: Emerald Publishing Ltd.
  • Lingham, S. Hill, I. and Manning, L. (2022) Artisan food production: Can artisan food be innovative and traditional at the same time? In Dana, L., Ramadani, V. and Palalic, R. (eds), Artisan Entrepreneurs, Springer. 
  • Hill, I. (2022). Ethnographic methods for capturing the sociomateriality of entrepreneurial practices. In: Thompson, N., Byrne, O., Teague, B., Jenkins, A. (eds). Research Handbook on Entrepreneurship as Practice. Research Handbooks in Business and Management Series, Edward Elgar Publishing, pp.266-280 https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/research-handbook-on-entrepreneurship-as-practice-9781788976824.html
  • Hill, I. And Scott, J. (2020). Business ethics and sustainable business. In: Deakins, D.  and Scott, J. (Eds), Entrepreneurship, A Contemporary and Global Approach, Chapter 9, pp. 200-227. London: Sage. (with four new case studies demonstrating how businesses have successfully addressed sustainability in their set up and value creation processes) 
  • Hill, I., and Bass, T. (2019). Embedding emotional resilience and reflection in the curriculum – pop-up shops for comprehensive learning in times of austerity. In: Diver, A. (2019) Employable scholars in Higher Education: Challenges and choices in times of austerity. Chapter 26, pp. 415-428. Springer: Berlin / New York. 

Books 

Peer reviewed research reports 

Commissioned reports 

  • Parsons, D., Hill, I. et al. (2012) Impact of teaching development programmes in Higher Education. York: Higher Education Academy, York. (https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/system/files/resources/hea_impact_teaching_development_prog.pdf). (cited 138 times, Google scholar) 
  • Strüder, I. (2005) Business Priorities for women – Business Premises, Business Priorities for women – Information, Data, Research (published as part of large report without named authors). London: London Development Agency. Published. 
  • Strüder, I. (2004) Women in Business – what do we know? A critical review of the academic and grey literature. London: Small Business Service with the Department of Trade and Industry (unpublished). 

Named contributor to: 

  • NICRE (2022) The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on rural businesses: experiences and resilience, National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise, State of Rural Enterprise Report No.1. Newcastle. 

Research blogs  

Conference papers, selection: 

  • Hill, I. (2022) How Do Entrepreneurs Engage in 'Body Work’ to accomplish entrepreneuring in pre-organised settings? Academy of Management Conference (US) Seattle, August 2022 
  • Hill, I. And Mole, K. (2022, accepted).The impact of business advice taking and business planning behaviour on firm responsive strategies in rural England during 2020-21. British Academy of Management Conference September 2022 
  • Hill, I. (2022) Rural creative entrepreneurs – a relational view of places for doing business and collaborating. British Academy of Management Conference September 2022 
  • Hill, I. (2022) Capturing entrepreneurial practices sociomateriality with ethnography based research. Entrepreneurship-as-practice conference 2022, Invited presentation. 
  • Hill, I. And Jevnaker, B. (2021)(50% each). Who is afraid of co-labour-ation? Artisan entrepreneurs in the UK. 37th EGOS Colloquium: Organising for an inclusive society: meaning, motivations and mechanisms, July 8-10, 2021, (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) Online. 
  • Carr, S., Hill, I., Manning, L., and Smith, R. (2021). Researching the role of the ‘institutional animateur’ at the Royal Agricultural University. The case of Farm491. ISBE Conference, October 28-29, 2021, Cardiff. 
  • Entrepreneurship-as-practice Conference 6. (Amsterdam, Netherlands). Online 9.4.-30-4-21 (every Friday afternoon for three hours). 
  • Hill, I. (2021) Researching entrepreneurial practices of creative entrepreneurs, 9-4-21; 
  • Hill, I. (2020) Presenting qualitative research findings on UK artisan entrepreneurs for publication, British Academy of Management In-the-cloud conference, Joined Track Session: Researching creative industries. 
  • Hill, I. (2020). Sustainable Business Models - adding elements or Business Model, Innovation for Sustainability? A review of the literature and new research agenda. British Academy of Management Annual conference 2020 in-the-cloud. 
  • Hill, I. and Scott, J. (2020) ‘Organizing entrepreneurship in context – craft and artisan entrepreneurs, European Group of Organisation Studies Colloquium "Organizing for a Sustainable Future: Responsibility, Renewal & Resistance" in Hamburg, Germany, July 2-4, 2020 
  • Hill, I. And Vershinina, N. (2020). Business modelling as entrepreneurial practice? 5th Entre-preneurship-as-Practice conference and PhD Symposium 2020, Amsterdam, Netherlands. 
  • Hill, I.: Workshop - Interviews for researching entrepreneurial practices (invited) 

Invited lectures, workshops organised and roundtables / session chair in the UK and abroad, selection: 

Invited keynote speaker and workshop organiser - teaching and impact related 

  • Invited speaker: New venture skills as citizenship skills - International Council for Small Business ICSB (Webinar, November 2021) 
  • Invited panel speaker - January 26, 2021 Westminster Business Forum - Priorities for supporting new businesses to start and scale up in the UK https://www.westminsterforumprojects.co.uk/conference/WBF-Start-Ups-21 
  • Invited participant in the 2021 Green Paper Action group on Innovative Employer - University - collaborations, led by Professor Nick Petford. The future of employer-university collaboration — a vision for 2030. https://www.jisc.ac.uk/reports/the-future-of-employer-university-collaboration  
  • Invited workshop organiser as 2020 award holder of the Experienced Teaching Practitioner with the British Academy of Management: December 2021 - Mainstreaming entrepreneurship across the curriculum (8-12-21), online conference with the Northampton University Vice-Chancellor Nick Petford, Professor Paul Jones, Swansea University and the EU researcher lead developer of the EntreComp Framework Dr Margarita Bacigalupo. 
  • Invited keynote speaker for the British Academy of Management Management Knowledge Exchange and Teaching conference, June 2021: Sustainability and enterprise teaching  
  • Invited keynote speaker - applying for the teaching awards, Dr. Inge Hill - Winning the Experienced Teaching Practitioner Award, online, June 2021 
  • April 2020 Teaching online - engaging students online. Dr Inge Hill, Royal Agricultural University, and Dr Anna John, Open University.  
  • Invited workshop: Taking your market research online, European University Viadrina, Germany, 2021 
  • June 2019 Keynote speaker on the State of Social Enterprise in the UK, University of Cantabria / Santander, Spain 
  • February 2019 Keynote speaker for Royal Association of Business School conference, Staffordshire University: Practical initiatives to integrate enterprise teaching across the university. https://smallbusinesscharter.org/event/embedding-enterprise-entrepreneurship-across-whole-student-university-population/ 

Workshop organiser (most recent):  

  • May 2022 - Coffee morning for the Strategy research special interest group - ‘teaching on the sustainable development goals and netzero within strategy modules’ - Presentation and Chair 
  • May 2022 - Winning Research Funding from Research Councils, Co-organiser, Webinar for the British Academy of Management 
  • September 2020 Strategy research papers in the cloud - co-organiser of live online paper presentations for British Academy of Management members of the Strategy Special Interest Group 
  • September 2020 Workshop “Researching entrepreneurial practices: using interviews on- and offline.” 5th Entrepreneurship-as-Practice conference 2020, Amsterdam 
  • May 2020 Chair and organiser for panel discussion ‘Covid19- pandemic reactions seen through the strategy lens’ - Online panel discussion with leading strategy academics, British Academy of Management Strategy Special Interest Group 
  • January 2020 Salford University “Paper development workshop - getting published in high quality journals with strategy related articles” https://www.bam.ac.uk/civicrm/event/info%3Fid%3D3674%26amp%3Breset%3D1  
  • January 2019 “Strategy as practice meets Entrepreneurship as Practice – mutual gains or competition?” Coventry University. 

Other media 

Named expert contributor to reports and articles: 

Invited contributions 

  • Hill, I. (2018) Birmingham City University. Using EntreComp to bring credibility to practical entrepreneurial learning activities, In: McCallum E., Weicht R., McMullan L., Price A., EntreComp into Action: get inspired, make it happen (M. Bacigalupo & W. O’Keeffe Eds.) , EUR 29105 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, pp. 86-87.