University Campus Suffolk (UCS) is hosting a week of events bringing together staff and students from its Suffolk Business School and the county’s business community.

The Suffolk Business Festival, which runs until Friday, includes three free events open to the public in the Waterfront Building, Ipswich.

This evening, Atul Shah, senior lecturer at Suffolk Business School, will be speaking about Taking Advantage of International Trade alongside John Tingle from UK Trade & Investment East of England.

The talk will offer advice about the support available to businesses looking to trade internationally, the experiences of a business that has transformed itself through exporting and the broader business benefits from engaging with a more diverse customer and partner community.

“To reach a global market and audience, it is important to develop ‘cultural intelligence’,” said Dr Shah.

Fortunately for Britain, the world resides here and recruiting and working with people from different cultures is an asset not a liability. It helps with innovation, access to new markets, and above all, cultivating cultural intelligence and ethics.”

On Thursday evening, John Lennon, visiting professor at UCS, and assistant vice principal for business development at Glasgow University will be the guest speaker for The Tourism Economy, an Integrated Approach. The evening for tourism-related businesses in the region will address how a relationship with Suffolk Business School at UCS can support business growth.

Professor Lennon is director of the Moffat Centre for Travel and Tourism Business Development which has provided a wealth of support and information to benefit a range of organisations and has undertaken over 500 tourism and travel projects in over 35 nations.

He will be joined by Kurt Janson, tourism alliance director, who will give an update on the value and importance of the tourism economy following the successful Suffolk Unlocked tourism conference in the spring, organised by final year UCS students and Visit Suffolk.

The Suffolk Business Festival concludes on Friday with a Business Breakfast Funding your Future. Speakers William Millar for New Anglia Growth Hub and Justin Grainger from CrowdFundMe2 will discuss funding options available to businesses of all types and sizes.

Dr Will Thomas, senior lecturer at Suffolk Business School, said: “We’ve always wanted to do something like a business festival here at UCS. With the refreshing of our courses this summer we thought it was ideal timing to link in more with the Suffolk business community.

“We have a great line up for the Suffolk Business Festival; there are events for the public to benefit from and we’ll be running special workshops and lectures for our students. The aim of Suffolk Business School is to have business-ready graduates so we have events like an entrepreneurship session and a CV and interviewing workshop. Our students will also benefit from hearing from UCS graduates who we have invited back to share their experiences.”

To be part of the Suffolk Business Festival, book your place on the What’s On page of the UCS website www.ucs.ac.uk.