The Bradford Computing Enterprise Centre is a software development unit providing custom software solutions to industry clients using a combination of academic research and undergraduate second and final year, and masters student expertise.

The students carry out work for industry as part of their study projects. The students also have the opportunity to work on placements with the Centre as part of their sandwich course.

The companies we work with get short-term projects delivered by high-quality students.  This is a win-win-win activity:

• students gain crucial industry knowledge and experience to improve their employability prospects and professional skills
• academics gain knowledge of industry developments and their needs which helps enhance their teaching and research
• our industrial partners end up with software products that are used by their organisations and benefit from academic expertise.

Students are matched by the CEC team to a company’s needs based on their area of expertise and fit.  The student is supervised by an academic to ensure they have the right technical input to support the project and are delivering on time and keeping on track.  The student spends time getting to know the company and the chosen project to fully understand what’s needed. 

Initially, students meet company representatives and start the project requirements. They stay in communication up until all the details of the project are clarified and then the students being the design and implementation phase following an agile approach involving small iterative steps with clear deliverables associated with each of them. The final product is delivered towards the end of the second semester when the students have to demonstrate the full functionality of the software product in front of the company representatives and academic supervisors.

The University is highly committed to working on Knowledge Transfer Partnership projects with companies, which often offer an opportunity for student projects that work alongside these and enhance the benefit to the company. Our Computing Enterprise Centre builds on our previous robust expertise and history of successful collaborative projects with industry and government.