Skip to Content
Skip to main content

Professor Ainurul Rosli
Divisional Lead-Brunel Hive (Interim) /Professor - Enterprise and Entrepreneurship

Research area(s)

I believe in research with impact, which drives forward businesses and societal transformation (see especially my 2017-2018 British Council project to build resilient academic for community engagement and also Haringey Entrepreneurship project supported by Mayor of London Funds). My research on engaged scholarship, co-creation and impact measurement enabled me to design a clear measurement of impact for knowledge exchange, enterprise and outreach engagement for Professional Practice in Entrepreneurship project, funded by Quintin Hogg Trust (2017-2018).

Research Interests

  • Entrepreneurial Team Learning
  • Co-creation and entrepreneurial ecosystem –  engaged scholarship/engaged practice (driver, process, outcome, impact), value creation process and ecosystem development, the role of co-creation process, impacts, strategies.
  • University-industry collaboration - The role of university knowledge transfer/Third Mission strategy, process, mechanism and impact; Role of intermediaries (such as accelerators) and its innovativeness. 
  • Entrepreneurial community- sustainable capacity building mechanism; 'entrepreneurialism'; the practice of entrepreneurship through community engagement
  • Social Impact through entrepreneurial action - Influencing and crafting social impact/value at the grassroots level. How universities and businesses work together to create value and societal impact? What challenges in measuring social impact/ social value creation, taking into consideration of different views among academics and practitioners? What opportunities resulting from the desire to resolve social challenges, and the role that entrepreneurs and business enterprises can play in generating ethical and sustainable solutions.

Research grants and projects

Research Projects

Grants

Build Back Better
Funder: European Social Fund
Duration: September 2022 - December 2023

bespoke upskilling programme targeted businesses based in seven boroughs of West London (Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham, Harrow, Hillingdon and Hounslow).

Help to Grow Management
Funder: Chartered Association of Business School and Department of Business and Trade
Duration: June 2022 -

Our programme supports senior managers of small and medium sized businesses to boost their business’s performance, resilience and long-term growth.

Small Business Leadership Programme (SBLP)
Funder: Chartered Association of Business School and Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, UK
Duration: August 2020 - July 2021
Rebuilding lives as waste pickers: Struggles of Venezuelans in the Colombian informal economy
Funder: British Academy
Duration: January 2020 - May 2021

The increase in the number of migrants from Venezuela to Colombia over the past 22 months brought important challenges to the surface; many Venezuelans have joined Colombians in becoming informal entrepreneurs. This research builds on a preliminary study of informal entrepreneurs in Colombia. It will further unpack how the interplay of structural, disciplinary, hegemonic and interpersonal powers associated with marginalised groups of Venezuelan waste pickers in Colombia affect their informal entrepreneurial activities and experiences, and their future survival. This project will contribute to the discussion on alleviating inequality within the Sustainable Development Goal 10. Leveraging the support of CIVISOL, an NGO supporting Venezuelan migrants and wastepickers, as well as local authorities managing the migrant crisis in Colombia, we will conduct 30 interviews with Venezuelan wastepickers and supporting organizations, and explore the entrepreneurial efforts of this marginalised community, to help address the implication of the relationships between entrepreneurship, migration and poverty.

“Scholars don’t know about entrepreneurship; entrepreneurs do”. Exploring the deeper perceptions, ideologies and resistances to using entrepreneurship scholarship amongst nascent entrepreneurs
Funder: Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE)
Duration: December 2019 - October 2020

Entrepreneurs do not often engage with or use entrepreneurship scholarship. This is despite research finding that engaged entrepreneurship scholarship can result in potential improvements for the entrepreneur and their business. This implies there are gaps between the (scholarship) activities undertaken by entrepreneurship academics and the relevance of that research for non-academic communities. Notwithstanding the growth in awareness of, and dialogue on, the relevance of entrepreneurship scholarship beyond the academy, a pressing knowledge gap persists therefore. That is, what negative perspectives and perceptions exist of entrepreneurship scholars and scholarship that inform non-engagement? Indeed without considering this aspect, understanding and knowledge of the concepts of relevance and impact, their measurement and meaning remains limited. Thus, investigation of the resistance – is it ideological or practical? – to engaging across the academic boundary, requires exploration. We intend to unpack controversial dialogue such as “scholars don’t know about entrepreneurship” to better understand and close the gap between what scholars’ research and what practice deems relevant and valuable. We propose to do this in a novel methodological way, working in partnership with start up incubators, using a longitudinal critical reflection approach that will access the perceptions, perspectives, and deeper reflections of two communities involved in the production and use of research in the entrepreneurship field. Through co-creation with incubator leadership, nascent entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship scholars, the project will contribute to discussions on relevance in entrepreneurship scholarship and practice and make sense of the importance, meaning and value of these concepts for theory and practice.

Intergenerational Entrepreneurship: Effective Entrepreneurial Mindset Development among third age community in Malaysia
Funder: RESEARCH ACCELERATOR IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES GRANT
Duration: April 2019 - July 2020

Project details

  • 2019-2021: British Academy- (Co-Investigator)- "Rebuilding lives as waste pickers: Struggles of Venezuelans in the Colombian informal economy" SRG19\190010 
  • 2019-2020: Brunel Research Accelerator in Developing Countries Grant (Principal Investigator)- "Intergenerational Entrepreneurship: Effective Entrepreneurial Mindset Development among third age community in Malaysia"
  • 2018-2019: GCRF University of Westminster (Co-Investigator) "Effective Entrepreneurship amongst  the waste pickers  in Cali, Colombia" 
  • 2018-2019: Centre of Entrepreneurship and Sustainability (CES) & Global Lives (Principal Investigator): "Community entrepreneurialism: The role of community branding in building sustainable entrepreneurship among independent, palm oil small holders in rural Sabah, Malaysia"
  • 2018-2019: British Academy of Management - Transition Grant (Principal Investigator) "Developing impact measures of university-industry collaborations using text mining: evidence from Knowledge Transfer Partnerships in the UK"
  • 2017-2018:  Quintin Hogg Trust (Co-Investigator) - "Professional Practice in Entrepreneurship"
  • 2017-2018:  British Council Newton Funds (Principal Investigator) - "Developing resilience of Social Enterprise through team entrepreneurial learning"
  • 2017-2018: London Mayor Funds (Co-Investigator) - "Haringey Entrepreneurship project"
  • 2015-2017: British Academy/ Leverhulme Small Grants (Principal Investigator) - "Knowledge Co-Creation process between universities and small and medium-size enterprises: Drivers and Impact"
  • 2014-2015: British Academy of Management’s Researcher Development Grants (Principal Investigator) - "Broadening the evidence base on knowledge transfer partnerships (KTPs) in the Social Sciences"
  • 2014-2015: Regional Fund Development (ERDF) (Co-Investigator) "Impact Evaluation of Knowledge Exchange Enterprise Network (KEEN)"
  •  2014: Wolverhampton Business School (Principal Investigator)- "Universities Knowledge Transfer Strategies"
  • 2013-2015: EU Life Long Learning (Principal Investigator) - "UC-CROWD- University-Companies Crowdsourcing"
  • 2013-2014: Birkbeck University of London (Co-Investigator) - "Multiple dimensions of Knowledge Transfer (KT) Value"
  • 2012 - Ronald Coase Fellowship

Brunel University London
Kingston Lane
Uxbridge
Middlesex UB8 3PH

Tel: +44 (0)1895 274000

Fax: +44 (0)1895 232806

Security: +44 (0)1895 255786

Directions to the campus

Brunel.ac.uk uses cookies to make our site better for you. By clicking on or navigating this site, you accept our use of cookies in accordance with our cookie policy.

Close this message