Intern match funding opportunity for Durham firms

The offer is applicable to student intern placements during the five-week Easter break.

The internship programme is part of the ERDF ‘Durham Internships and Collaborative Enterprise’ “DICE” project, which aims to provide business growth in small or medium enterprises (SMEs) based in County Durham.

Match funded, DICE internships can give businesses access to high level skills with low financial risk, with the benefit of guidance and support with the recruitment process.

The project offer from Durham University includes:

• Benefit from the up-to-date knowledge and high-level skills of Durham University student(s) during the five-week Easter vacation period (20 March to 21 April)
• Eligible SMEs will be given 50/50 match funding for each internship, based on a salary of £18,500 per annum. For example, £1,778.84 payment to intern and £889.42 grant to SME for five weeks.
• Flexible internships offer; SMEs can recruit multiple interns, for up to 5 weeks per intern.
• Full support provided with the recruitment and selection process.
• Guidance on all information that must be retained under ERDF guidelines.

Project eligibility:

• You must not have already benefitted from the DICE SME internships grant.
• You must be a SME as defined by the EU (up to 250 employees and annual turnover does not exceed €50 million). This includes social enterprises engaged in economic activity.
• You must be based within County Durham.
• Your business must not be within a sector which is not eligible for ERDF funding.
• Internships must offer a developmental, graduate level work experience to the intern.
• SMEs must provide required evidence of payment to the intern(s) to Durham University before 1st May 2023, to receive the grant.
• SME applications are open now; deadline is 3 March to apply.

Application process:

Email the DICE Project team at sme.internships@durham.ac.uk for more information and an application pack.