Summer Internship Programme 2016
Company Information Pack
Contents
UCL Advances ............................................................................................................................. 2
What the Summer Internship Programme is ............................................................................. 3
Should we apply? ....................................................................................................................... 4
Eligibility ................................................................................................................................. 4
Commitment .......................................................................................................................... 4
Are we guaranteed a student? .............................................................................................. 5
What does UCL need from me? ............................................................................................. 5
Students and placements .......................................................................................................... 7
Eligibility ................................................................................................................................. 7
Types of roles ......................................................................................................................... 7
What the student gets ........................................................................................................... 8
How to apply .............................................................................................................................. 9
How to find a student ............................................................................................................ 9
Interviews and selection ...................................................................................................... 10
Application form .................................................................................................................. 10
How the applications are evaluated .................................................................................... 10
Important dates ....................................................................................................................... 12
Terms & Conditions ................................................................................................................. 13
UCL Advances
UCL Advances, UCL's centre for entrepreneurship and business interaction, helps anyone
who wants to learn about, start or grow a business. Its primary role is to promote a culture
of entrepreneurship on campus and engagement with entrepreneurs and small businesses
beyond UCL’s boundaries. It works to support start-ups and small businesses across London
by helping them to access the technical and business expertise of UCL’s staff and students
through a series of programmes to help support ambitious young companies.
UCL Advances is affiliated with UCL Enterprise, which provides UCL’s structures for engaging
with business for commercial and societal benefit.
What the Summer Internship Programme is
What is it?
UCL Advances has been running this internship programme for many years and it has grown
year on year with the commitment from UCL to:
•
•
•
•
Better students’ employability skills;
Connect students with the exciting entrepreneurial and small business scene in
London;
Showcase the quality of UCL students to local businesses; and
Support London-based SMEs gain real tangible benefits from a UCL intern and to make
their businesses progress.
Who is it for?
This programme is open to any London micro, small or medium sized enterprise with less
than 250 employees (including start-ups, third sector and social enterprises) who have a
desk in an office for the intern.
The benefits
You host a high calibre student or graduate to work with you, free of charge for 8 or 12
weeks, who could possibly turn out to be a future employee! This programme is one of a
range of enterprise support services offered by UCL Advances designed to aid growth and
development.
Should we apply?
Eligibility
SME
The company must be an SME to be eligible for the programme. Generally, this means the
company must have fewer than 250 employees and a turnover of less than €50 million. In
determining whether a company is an SME for the purpose of this programme, we adhere
to EU definitions.
London-based
The company must be registered and/or trading in London. If the company’s premises are
not based in London, they must demonstrate that they trade in London or have close ties to
London as our funding is specifically for London-based companies.
Office space
The company needs to have an appropriate workspace in an office environment. Co-working
spaces are acceptable but the company should not be hot-desking. You must be located in
an office environment with at least one other full-time member of staff of the business.
The company must not be home-based. This includes a professional, dedicated office space
within the home. Converted residences are acceptable as long as they are now operating
entirely as a business and not as a residence in any part of the space.
Access to senior management
A member of the senior management team must be committed to spending at least half a
day per week meeting with or mentoring the intern (taking them to meetings, reviewing
goals and tasks etc). This is because these internships are meant to expose the interns to all
facets of how a small business works and to impart entrepreneurial skills.
Commitment
You will need to commit to having a senior member of staff available to mentor the student
throughout the internship; the student should have regular meetings and access to this
senior staff member. Your company must be willing to provide the student exposure to
numerous aspects of running a business. This programme is about supporting small
businesses while teaching students about entrepreneurship and business. It is our
expectation that the companies on the programme provide their student with a learning
experience.
You should also be aware that, depending on your chosen recruitment method, there is a
time commitment involved in finding the right student (i.e. the interview process).
If you intend to attend one of our recruitment fairs, we will need a representative of your
company to man your stand for approximately three hours on a weekday. Interviews of
potential students should take subsequent to the fairs on your own time.
There is a small fee to attend a recruitment fair.
Are we guaranteed an intern?
In a word, no. There is a very high student interest in our programme. Last year over 1000
students attended our recruitment fairs in search of a company. However, there is no way
we can guarantee that you will find the right student for your role. The more specific you
are in the skills and experience you want in a candidate, the less likely you are to find the
right match. Please note that this programme is only open to current students or very
recent graduates, so finding a candidate with extensive work experience is unlikely.
Even if you have found a student that you’d like to apply with, due to our limited funding,
we cannot guarantee that you will be granted the funding to enable the internship.
We highly recommend that if you are either unsuccessful in your application or you are
successful but would like to take on a second student, that you hire the student directly.
Number of placements
This year we will be placing approximately 100 students in 8-week and 12-week internships.
How competitive is it?
This depends entirely on the number of applications received and the amount of funding we
have available, both of which vary year-to-year.
In previous years we have received as few as 150 applications and as many as 500, but the
number of available positions has changed drastically over the last few years as we get an
increasing amount of funding.
What does UCL need from me?
Please ensure you are an eligible, London-based SME before submitting an application. We
conduct due diligence before making funding offers, and all ineligible companies will be
turned down regardless of the quality of their application.
Although we fund the intern, any expenses incurred as a direct result of the role (e.g. travel
to and from meetings outside of the office; conference fees) need to be covered by your
company. Travel costs resulting from the student’s commute between their home and your
office are the student’s responsibility.
We conduct a follow-up phone call in the second week of the internship, and we ask you to
fill in feedback forms and take part in some media and case studies at the conclusion of the
programme. If you have an intern for 12 weeks, your feedback form is mandatory as these
internships are part-funded by Santander Universities and one of their funding
requirements is that a feedback form is completed.
Students and placements
Eligibility
School
The student must be a UCL student or recent graduate (2014, 2015, and 2016) to
participate. Affiliate and intercollegiate students are eligible provided they have been issued
a UPI.
Degree/focus
Students from all faculties, all degrees, and all concentrations are eligible for the
programme. We do not give priority to a particular focus; programme participants have
always been representative of the variety of studies offered at UCL.
Year
Students from any year, undergraduate or postgraduate, are eligible to apply. Alumni
within two years of graduation are eligible to apply.
Visas
To be eligible for the programme, the student needs to be eligible to work in the UK. If they
are on a visa, their visa must cover the full duration of the internship. We are unable to
issue a visa for the Summer Internship Programme.
It is the student’s responsibility to ensure they are eligible for the programme before
submitting an application.
Pre-existing Relationship
Please note that if you have had a pre-existing relationship of the following types below, the
application will be invalid:
 A paid employee/intern
 A shareholder of the business
 A relative to the owner(s)/director(s)
Types of roles
The types of roles students take on range from business-facing to technical. Potential
placements could involve development, social media marketing, project management, event
coordination, communications, and so on. Whatever the focus of the internship is, we
would hope and expect that each intern also have the opportunity to learn directly from
senior management about business skills in general.
The students should have the opportunity to be exposed to all aspects of the business and
gain a mentorship experience from a senior member of staff. Positions in which students do
not learn and develop skills (e.g. an 8-week placement of pure data entry) are not
appropriate for this programme. We recognize that in small companies, all employees will
undertake some ‘grunt work,’ but this should not be the entirety or the main component of
the placement.
All of the placements are full-time at the company’s offices. Student interns are expected to
work 35-40 hours per week.
8 vs 12 week
Why do we offer two options and what are the differences between them?
Eight-week placements are fully funded by UCL and the number of spots that we offer is
determined by the amount of funding we have in the budget each year.
In 2012 we began partnering with Santander Universities on the Santander Universities SME
Internship Programme, where they fund 50% of a 12-week internship and UCL subsidises
the rest. Therefore the number of 12-week internships we are able to offer each year is
dependent on the amount of funding allotted to us by Santander.
How can I be awarded a 12-week internship?
Due to Santander Universities funding regulations, 12-week internships are ONLY available
to final year students and recent graduates. So if you’d like to apply for funding for 12
weeks, please ensure that your chosen student is in their final year or a recent UCL
graduate.
You will also need to complete a separate application form and there will be additional
forms and administration tasks to complete if you are successful in securing funding for a
placement.
What the student gets
Stipends
All of the interns are paid £329/week which equates to London Living Wage for a full-time
internship.
It is important to note that the student is not entering into employment with either UCL or
host company. The programme is essentially very hands-on entrepreneurship training over
the summer.
Training
All students attend a mandatory ‘Enterprise Bootcamp,’ a 3 day course designed to teach
students the basics of enterprise and entrepreneurship.
In addition to the Bootcamp, we collaborate with UCL Careers to offer students training in
CV development, personal branding, and transitioning from academic studies to entering
the workplace.
How to apply
In order to apply for the funding, you need to have already interviewed and selected a
student. The application is a joint effort and you and your student will each need to fill in a
section; both sections will be evaluated. The top applications will be accepted onto the
programme and offered funding.
All applications must be submitted by 12pm on Monday 25th April 2016 to
businesssupport@ucl.ac.uk. This is a strict deadline and any applications with a later
timestamp will not be considered for the programme.
How to find a student
Option 1: Source your own student
You may already have a UCL student in mind for the programme, or you may be in search of
a particular degree or set of skills, in which case it may be a better option for you to source
your own student. We recognise that this is a difficult task when you do not have the right
networks, but would suggest contacting relevant departments and student societies with
the opportunity.
We have prepared an information pack to give to students when you approach them about
the
programme,
which
can
be
found
on
the
website:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/advances/advances-programmes/summer-internships
Option 2: Attend our recruitment fairs
At the end of March, we invite companies interested in our programme to attend
recruitment fairs to speak with and collect CVs of potential student interns.
The number of fairs we run depends on the number of companies who sign up; as a
guideline, last year we held three fairs with approx. 30 companies at each.
Please note that, while there is no cost involved to apply for the programme, there is a fee
based on your company’s size to attend the recruitment fairs. This fee allows us to offset
the costs of running the events.
≤ 10 employees
11 - 50 employees
51 – 250 employees
£100
£200
£300
** Please note: attending a recruitment fair rather than sourcing your own student does
not give your application an advantage. The joint application you submit with your chosen
student will be evaluated and accepted or rejected in the same manner regardless of how
you have recruited the student.
Interviews and selection
All interviews with potential students are to be arranged independently. You are welcome
to use whichever interview process you find most appropriate for the position.
If you are meeting students through our recruitment fairs, interviews should occur after the
fairs. The fairs themselves are an opportunity to network and collect CVs and should not be
used as the formal interview. Make sure that you have exchanged contact information with
your students of interest at the fairs.
You must select a single student before applying. You can submit only one application, so
you should ensure that you and your student are committed to the programme before
submitting an application. If your student has been interviewing with multiple companies,
make sure that you are their chosen company before submission.
Application form
Both 8 week and 12 week application forms are available on the website to download.
We recommend that you set aside about 30-60 minutes to sufficiently fill out the form.
Single sentence answers are not appropriate.
How the applications are evaluated
We are looking primarily for a demonstration that the placement you are offering involves
some mentorship and exposure to your business as a whole. You should be able to show
that you have enough work to fill the duration of the internship and you can offer learning
opportunities for the student. It is also critical that we see the benefit the internship will
bring to your business.
A panel of evaluators will independently rate each question on the application out of a
maximum of 3; these ratings are then averaged and ranked with funding being offered to
the top applications.
We typically retain 10-15 applicants for a waitlist, as there are inevitable last minute dropouts due to unforeseen circumstances.
Important dates
Recruitment fair dates
Monday 21 March, 2-5pm
Tuesday 22 March, 11am-2pm
Wednesday 23 March, 9am-12pm
Please keep these dates in your diary free and we will confirm which date you are attending
in early March.
Terms & Conditions
By submitting an application to the programme or as a company attending the recruitment
fairs you agree to the following terms and conditions of the UCL Advances’ Summer
Internship Programme.
1. Applications
a. Applications must be received by the stated deadline to be considered for the
programme.
b. Offers of funding and places on the waitlist are both conditional on the submission
of the required paperwork by the stated deadline. UCL Advances reserves the right
to withdraw offers if the deadlines are not met.
c. Each party can only submit one application to the programme, jointly with one other
student or company to make a single student-company pair. Students cannot submit
applications with more than one company and companies cannot submit
applications with more than one student.
d. Application to the UCL Advances’ Summer Internship Programme is free of charge,
but companies choosing to attend the optional recruitment fairs are subject to a fee
according to their company size to offset the costs of running these events.
2. Eligibility
You confirm that you meet all of the eligibility criteria for the programme. Specifically, you
confirm that:
Students
a. You are a current student or recent graduate (within 2 years of graduation) of
University College London.
b. You have the right to work 35-40 hours per week in the United Kingdom for the
dates and duration of the internship.
Businesses
a. You are an SME in accordance with EU definitions.
b. You are registered and/or trading in London.
c. You have an available, steady desk for the duration of the internship where the
intern will be based for the entirety of the programme. The desk is not a hot-desk.
d. This desk is in appropriate office space in the Greater London Area near to the desk
of the intern’s direct supervisor.
e. Your office space is not based inside a residence or on the same premises (homebased).
3. Withdrawals and Funding
a. If either the student or the company in a pair withdraws from the programme after
the application deadline, the application and/or funding will be withdrawn, as places
on the programme are offered to company-student pairs and not to individuals.
b. If either the student or the company in a pair withdraws from the programme before
the application deadline, the remaining party is free to submit an application with a
new partner. Deadlines will not be extended in this circumstance regardless of how
close to the deadline the withdrawal occurs. It is entirely the responsibility of an
abandoned party to find a new partner and UCL Advances in unable to assist with
this process.
c. Students are funded only for the hours that they work. If a company or student
withdraws before the completion of an internship:
i. Pending payments for unworked days will be cancelled.
ii. Payments already issued to the student for unworked days will be repaid to
UCL in a timely manner.
d. Any expenses incurred by the student as a direct result of the placement are to be
covered by the company. Examples of this include travel to and from meetings
outside of the office and conference/training fees.
e. Travel costs resulting from a commute between the student’s home and the office
are the student’s responsibility and the company is not expected to cover or
contribute toward them.
4. Recruitment fairs
Students are not charged a fee to attend the recruitment fairs. References to payments,
refunds and cancellation fees in this section are not relevant to students on the programme.
Payment and Confirmation of Booking
a. An e-mail confirmation will be sent to the company following payment of the
registration fee. If an e-mail confirmation has not been received after completing the
registration process, please contact the contact person for the fair or
businesssupport@ucl.ac.uk.
b. Final details will be sent up to seven working days prior to the event. Please contact
businesssupport@ucl.ac.uk if you do not receive event details.
c. UCL Advances cannot be held responsible for the non-arrival of event information.
Cancellations and Refunds
a. All cancellations and refund requests must be made in writing 3 full working days
(Monday – Friday) prior to the start of the event to the contact person for the
recruitment fair or to businesssupport@ucl.ac.uk.
b. If the above notification period is not given, or in the event of non-attendance, then
a £50 cancellation fee applies - whatever the reason.
c. Illness: in the event of non-attendance due to illness, a doctor’s certificate must be
provided otherwise the full cancellation fee will be charged.
d. Individuals who withdraw after the start of an event will still be liable for the
cancellation fee as outlined above.
e. Cancellation and Non-attendance: an individual who has registered for a fair who
doesn’t either: a) provide the required 3 working days’ notice, or b) fails to attend,
will be charged the full registration fee, in addition to the cancellation fee as above.
This is due to administrative and catering costs incurred by the department and your
place could have been allocated to another individual.
f. Attendees are welcome to send a substitute without incurring a charge, provided
UCL Advances is notified in writing (businesssupport@ucl.ac.uk or the event contact
person) 3 full working days prior to the event.
g. UCL Advances reserves the right to, due to unforeseen circumstances, cancel or reschedule an event. In the unlikely event of cancellations, UCL Advances will refund
the full amount of the registration fee (if applicable). However personal expenses
incurred by the attendee are non-refundable by UCL Advances.
5. Data Protection
a. The application and information provided will be held on UCL databases. You may be
contacted about other UCL Advances or UCL activities in the future. By submitting
this information you agree that your details may be used for this purpose. Your
details will not be passed on to any third parties.
For further information please visit https://www.ucl.ac.uk/advances/interns or contact
businesssupport@ucl.ac.uk.