Student consultancy projects

Community-student-university partnership in action

The Community Action and Knowledge Exchange (CAKE) scheme offers local organisations free consultancy in exchange for hosting a final year undergraduate student project team.

Each academic year we work with small local organisations; primarily in the community, voluntary and social enterprise sectors, as partners in our unique student consultancy scheme. Client organisations benefit from free consultancy on systems analysis, information management and strategy, business planning, web design or other Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) related matters, in exchange for hosting a project team. 

During the past years, our 100+ successful projects have provided organisations with recommendations, strategies and artifacts. The projects application and selection process runs from July to September, and the projects begin around the end of October and run until March the following year. Student teams of four or five "consultants" work in client organisations for up to a day per week between late October and late March.

Only a small number of projects can be run annually, so a selection process is involved.

Apply to take part

Projects vary widely. Previous clients have benefited from feasibility studies on the use of ICT. Others have involved web design and software development. Some look more broadly at enhancing organisational effectiveness through improving non-IT systems.

Projects focusing on computing or social media are encouraged too. We also welcome innovative, exploratory ideas that take advantage of new technologies.

• To find out more, please download our Introduction to Student Consultancy guide (PDF).
• To get an idea of typical projects, see the past project examples page.
• See the selection criteria for information on how we shortlist client applications and select partners.

If you are interested in hosting a student consultancy project, please complete our application form on Infohub (log in required).

The deadline for this year's applications is Monday 12 August 2024.

Contact us

For urgent queries, or if you missed the deadline, please contact Professor Dr Kamran Munir (CAKE Scheme Director, and Consultancy Project Module Lead) at cake@uwe.ac.uk or on tel: +44 (0)117 32 82636.