A NEW campaign has been launched to inspire staff and students at Scotland’s Rural College through entrepreneurship.

Working with Entrepreneurial Spark, one of the campaign's first outcomes is the awarding of a six-month fellowship to SRUC staff member Bryn Tennant to give him time to devote to his plan to bolster the number of veterinary practices signing up to a quality assurance scheme.

Competing against a dozen other members of staff, vet services diagnostics manager Mr Tennant won the chance to spend 40% of his working time over the next six months to further develop his business idea – and such internal encouragement for entrepreneurial ideas to benefit the wider business is something SRUC intends to do more of.

This week, the college and eSpark held an inspirational event for students, to hear from two successful entrepreneurs – Kristen Hunter, owner and founder of Whisky Frames, and Lynn Mann, founder of Supernature Oils and an ambassador for Women’s Enterprise Scotland.

Principal Wayne Powell said: “We are delighted to be working with eSpark on this exciting programme of events and look forward to seeing new ideas generated. It’s essential for SRUC to instil an entrepreneurial culture in our staff and our students in order to drive innovation in our research, our teaching and in the way we engage with industry.”