UMIC is proud of its achievement in business incubation and staff management, striving to be formally accredited for its practices. This is why we regularly undergo accreditation processes – to drive continuous improvement and to allow us to benchmark ourselves against the very best. On this page we describe our journey through UKBI Inspire and Investors in People accreditation.
UKBI Inspire
UMIC’s practices in business incubation are benchmarked nationally and internationally, which is why we were delighted to gain formal recognition for this in 2010, in the form of UKBI Inspire accreditation. UMIC’s bioscience incubators on Grafton Street, Manchester, were labelled as “leading edge” by a panel of experts from UKBI. UKBI – the UK’s professional body for the business incubation industry – spent a day with UMIC staff, board members and tenants to evaluate the incubation practices against a national framework. The accreditation examined various aspects of the business support services and concluded that UMIC’s activities set itself apart as a leading-edge incubator. The accreditation process measures success against the following factors:
Inspire awarded status:
Martino Picardo, UMIC’s Managing Director, said: “We are absolutely delighted to have been accredited at this level. The accreditation reflects the hard work of our staff to deliver world class futures, based on quality service delivery, on behalf of The University of Manchester. I am very proud of both the UMIC team and with the nature and calibre of our tenants that we serve. I feel that the accreditation process developed by the UKBI is important, and will help us as practitioners of business incubation to quantify the benefits of our services, differentiate ourselves from others and identify ways in which we can improve the services we offer.”
UMIC receiving its plaque: L-R Keiron Broadbent (UKBI), Adam Casey and Sarah Acton (UMIC)
Investors in People
UMIC is dedicated to creating an environment in which its staff can thrive and flourish at all levels, and in May 2009, UMIC achieved Investors in People accreditation at its first attempt. This was in recognition of the good practices in appraisals, training & development, and the culture of loyalty and commitment.
Of the objectives assessed against, UMIC was evaluated against its business objectives including:
Dr Martino Picardo, UMIC’s managing director said: “We are delighted to have attained the standard with such a young developing team. We are working towards continuous improvement of our services for our customers and having the right team in place is vital. We take great pride as a service-based business, acting on behalf of the University, in listening to our customers and we will continue to do so.
We have a real ambition now to take the key recommendations on board to deliver an even better service to our customers and achieve a greater global profile for our incubation activities. In short, we’ll continue to focus on our core goal of delivering world class futures for our tenants and virtual customers”.
Sarah Acton, UMIC’s HR manager, adds: “One of the most pleasing elements of the review was the recognition that a highly motivated team culture exists within UMIC. This will greatly help with the continued delivery of customer services and we always want to hear from our clients about how we can continue to improve”.
UMIC receives its Investors in People plaque.
L-R Helen Sullivan, Marie Sutton, Colin Fowler, Sarah Acton, Tasneem Ahmed, Paula Smith, Mike Sharrock, Steve Gregory
