July 11, 2016, by Postgraduate Placements Nottingham

Postgraduate Placements (PPN) – Nottingham’s best kept secret

Paul Rice joined Postgraduate Placements Nottingham (PPN) this year as Placements Delivery Manager. Drawing on over 20 years’ experience working with businesses to tap into the talent pool in the UK’s universities, Paul talks about what makes PPN special.


Paul Rice

Paul Rice

During my first few months at Postgraduate Placements Nottingham (PPN) I attended a Research Showcase organised by The Graduate School which vividly highlighted the depth, diversity and expertise of our current postgraduates. Amongst many other things they are working to fight dementia using bees, developing novel techniques for working with ultra-cold atoms, utilising new building techniques to support textile workers, turning smartphones into hearing aids, and doing cutting edge research on offender management. And, for me, the really extraordinary thing is that the skills, research abilities, knowledge base, enthusiasm and perspectives of these researchers and others could be working for your business right now on strategic projects in a range of fields supporting growth, competitiveness and new market development.

From innovative start-ups to established businesses, more and more organisations are taking up The University of Nottingham Graduate School’s unique and award-winning placements offer (Times Higher Education Awards 2015) and working with our dedicated team who help them enhance fixed-term projects by facilitating access to the specialised expertise and leading-edge knowledge of our talented postgraduate community; with the additional benefits of low-costs and minimal administration.

From researching and developing new export markets, audience segmentation for strategic planning, developing and launching new training courses, advances in environmental techniques and developing vineyards in Nottingham (a personal favourite) the potential support available from our talented Postgraduates continually amazes me, and I’m not easily amazed.


PPN provides a seamless and straight forward process to recruit a talented postgraduate for the project and with University of Nottingham funding the cost makes it an unparalleled offer. To discuss how we may be able to support your business contact PPN at ppnenquiries@nottingham.ac.uk

Posted in Placements