Internships

Creative Fuse ERDF Internships!

The Internship programme is provided by Northumbria University as part of Creative Fuse North East. We offer you 200 hours of highly skilled graduate support, a dedicated member of our academic team and a grant from the University to substantively meet the core salary costs. Drawn from a select pool of Arts and Design disciplines the graduate intern will offer a valuable set of skills and creative approaches to enhance your business development and will be chosen by you at interview.

Creative Fuse ERDF Internships in a nutshell

Could your small to medium sized business benefit from a fresh perspective, injection of creativity and skilled resource? Do you want to trial how a new role might work in your business, or need capacity to explore a new business approach, product or idea? If the answer is yes, then Creative Fuse ERDF Internships can offer a viable and funded solution to meeting your business ambitions!

Northumbria University’s ERDF Creative Fuse North East programme can support the development of your business or organisation through the placement of a highly skilled graduate intern. Each internship will be supported by a dedicated member of the academic team – who are specialists in various Design disciplines, the Arts and the Cultural and Creative Industries. We will work with you to discuss your specific business needs and then identify who from the academic team can best support you, given their individual areas of expertise.

The intern, who you will select through an interview process, will be placed with you for up to 200 hours over a 6–12-week period – this flexibility means the timing and intern working pattern can be optimal to deliver the project successfully.  The intern will work on an agreed ‘collaboration project’, with clearly identified aims and objectives to ensure that expectations are clear from the outset and can be monitored and delivered.

The internships are available to eligible businesses on a first come, first served basis from Autumn 2021 to the Spring/ Summer of 2022, with generous grant support from the University to contribute to the core salary costs through ERDF funding. In total the University will be placing 22 graduate interns drawn from selected Arts and Design disciplines and offering a valuable set of abilities and creative approaches to enhance your business development as well as an injection of energy, enthusiasm and a fresh perspective!

We offer:

• Eligible SME grants, up to £1974, towards the costs of the intern – who can work on a part-time or full-time basis
• Promotion and facilitation in helping select and recruit the right graduate for you
• Dedicated academic support to enrich and provide specialist experience

You must:

• Be located in North East Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) area: Newcastle, Gateshead, North & South Tyneside, Northumberland and Sunderland.
• Be a small to medium sized registered business who has less than 250 employees or a social enterprise, charity or community interest company engaged in economic activity (subject to eligibility criteria)
• Have received less than €200,000 De Minimis funding in the last 3 years
• Have capability to create a position for an intern, lasting between 6-12 weeks**

** At the time the organisation applying for the scheme, and at the point of the recruitment process, the graduate must not be an existing employee of the organisation.

Sounds great and want to find out more?

• Simply drop an email to our registration team at creativefuse@northumbria.ac.uk by clicking 'contact us' above
• Include your registered company name, contact name and if you have them links to your business websites/ social media accounts.

We can then arrange to talk through the programme to see if it is right for you!