CODE-SWITCH CONSULTANTS
Transforming academic research into
rigorous, practical & accessible
solutions for your business
CODE-SWITCH CONSULTANTS
Transforming academic research into
rigorous, practical & accessible
solutions for your business
Code-Switch Consultants is a story of a former part-time and self-funded PhD researcher (PhD status: unfinished) and her passion for supporting people to thrive in their careers. After years as a PhD researcher, Job Applications and Careers Adviser and Researcher Developer, I wanted to support researchers to gain in-demand industry skills to thrive inside or outside academia. The passion and perseverance to support the continuous professional development of researchers finally led to the establishment of Code-Switch Consultants, a University of Manchester staff start-up.
Since we launched in March 2020, Code-Switch symbolises not just the fruition of a dream but also the strong connections we have developed with and between researchers, businesses, universities and Doctoral Training Partnerships. Join our training programmes and project-based workshops to be part of the journey, learn a highly transferrable set of skills and techniques and experience the satisfaction of applying your existing research know-how to deliver immediate positive impacts on businesses, society and the economy.
Register for our MBA-style Research Consultancy Programme to get real-world consultancy experience and cultivate in-demand skills to stand out from the crowd and clinch the best jobs.
Partner with Code-Switch to provide your researchers an exciting opportunity to develop key industry skills, gain a fresh sense of purpose and improve their career prospects.
Work with Code-Switch to access the best research talent in the market for your unique project and recruitment needs.
This has been an amazing experience and big thanks to my fantastic research team Alexandra Ciocănel, Arinze Ekwem and Alina McLellan. So exited for the final analysis and insights. Great thanks to Hellen Parra Flórez SFHEA for all her support in helping me put the initial proposal together.
We worked with Helen and her team through the ESRC-funded Accelerating Business Collaboration (ABC) programme and funded 17 participants to participate in full Codeswitch Programme. The PGRs had valuable experience, saying they had learned a lot and benefited hugely, including feeling more confident about embarking on their academic and industry career paths. They demonstrated a greater awareness and understanding of commercial concepts and how their knowledge and skillsets wore of value to industry. From the outset, Helen's rigorous approach to planning and delivery gave me a lot of confidence to support students into their programme. She remained in contact with our team throughout, informing us progress, developments and any issues and shape her evaluation to suit our needs and those of our funders. She was an excellent person to work with and I readily recommended the services of CodeSwitch to other Universities.
Hi Hellen, I wanted to say how pleased I was to work with you and Code Switch Consultants. Your professionalism, dedication and enthusiasm were much appreciated by me and by our researchers. The support you gave them was of a high standard, they were fully engaged with the program and gave very good feedback on the involvement of Code Switch.
I am delighted to share my most recent achievement. After roughly 6 months of intense work and a series of unexpected events, I managed to finish this Research Consultancy Programme. This experience has opened a new world full of magnificent opportunities in the business and consultancy world. I am open and eager to embark on new projects which I will be sharing with you.
Thank you Hellen and the Code Switch Consultants for delivering the Quick Switch Industry Engagement Essentials workshops for PGRs at the University of Manchester. PGRs really welcomed and valued your insights and left the sessions feeling more confident and equipped with tools and techniques to put into action.
Thanks Hellen! I feel lucky to take part in the program and have an experience of applying my research skill inthe business field. It's a learning and rewarding journey for me. As a first-year PhD (in lockdown cohort), my teammates Seyi Awosika and Victoria Christodoulides are my valuable new friends who have given me so much support! Also, Anna Brady, Hellen Parra-Flórez SFHEA and Dr Katarzyna Kucaba, you three are a wonderful couching team! Appreciate a lot 🙂
Happy to have been a part of this project! A successful outcome for all involved
It was an amazing experience to work with the Code-Switch team, the client, and my excellent team members!
Thank you Code-Switch Consultants for this brilliant experience. I have thoroughly enjoyed this 6month placement programme, learning from industry and our client John O'Brien, your programme (Hellen Parra-Flórez SFHEA Anna Brady, the project and my brilliant teammates Jingwen Zhang Seyi Awosika. This programme had given a huge range of transferable and specific skills in #research #consulting #programmemanagement #communication #engagingwithindustry that I am extremely grateful for and which will be invaluable to me. I would highly recommend any #earlycareerresearchers and #phdstudent to look at this project to develop their skills and confidence in these and many more areas. Thank you so much and I look forward to see where this experience opens up new doors in my career.
Thank you Hellen and the Code Switch Consultants for delivering the Quick Switch Industry Engagement Essentials workshops for PGRs at the University of Manchester. PGRs really welcomed and valued your insights and left the sessions feeling more confident and equipped with tools and techniques to put into action.
Thank you Hellen Parra-Flórez SFHEA, Anna Brady, and the Code-Switch Consultants team for this great opportunity. It has been an invaluable experience honing a toolkit of skills in project management and business consulting. Thank you to our client for the support. And to my project team members Victoria Christodoulides and Jingwen Zhang, you are amazing!. I'll encourage PhD students and early career researchers to take advantage of this golden opportunity where you can apply your research techniques and skills in a business consultancy program. #phd #consultancy #research #projectmanagement
My experience of the Code-Switch consultancy training programme was uniquely engaging and an absolute highlight of my non-academic experiences during the PhD. As a student of English literature, I was curious about ways to 'professionalise' and expand my CV beyond academic achievements. The course was not only a major success in that regard, but it really helped me identify and strengthen my own existing skillset. Often underestimated is the power of communication, but as arts and humanities students that is perhaps our biggest asset. But what we don't often get in the PhD is the opportunity to test out and advance our communicative skills in a non-academic environment, such as in a business environment, and in a team. Particularly, in these isolating times, having that team aspect to the work was vitally important and, most of all, made it extremely fun. I made fantastic friends across completely different disciplines and felt really proud of all that we accomplished together on the project. And while it might seem daunting to jump head-first into the business world, especially when coming from an arts background, you can expect incredible support and guidance at all times from Hellen, Anna, and the rest of the Code-Switch team. So I highly encourage anyone to apply no matter your discipline. In many respects, I feel like I gained more from this 6-month programme than I did in the rest of my PhD - and that is no exaggeration.
Really enjoying working on this project and can't wait to share our recommendations with Tracy!
Congrats!!! And thanks for expanding the research skills of postdocs that through this initiative will have new experiences working closely with hugely relevant problems. I can see the impact of this initiative on their job prospects and professional paths. Congratulations again!! Let's talk more about it 😉
A great training scheme for #phdstudents the bridges academia and industry
Thanks Hellen! Congratulations on putting together a fantastic Research programme. It was a pleasure working with you and the research team: Juliane, Lee, Meng, Emily! Looking forward to future projects
Hellen Parra-Flórez SFHEA a big thank you to codeswitchers and the research team, we really enjoyed working with you all and got a great outcome from all your hard work, thank you from all at LCMB Building Performance Ltd
One of the more challenging aspects of transitioning from academia into another career, is gaining work experience relevant to your target sector or industry. It's the age-old problem of not being able to get a job without experience, but not being able to get experience without a job! Fortunately Hellen Parra-Flórez SFHEA has set up Code-Switch Consultants (CSC) to help researchers crack this problem. By joining CSC's Research Consultancy Programme, researchers get to use their skills and knowledge on real-world business projects, helping them to develop consultancy and project management skills and experience (see video).
Boundary spanning and applying bilingual codes between and from Academia to Management Consulting is the Switch! Click on it.
A great program to be involved with that will add value to your companies development! Knowledge share and business tranformation impact to BreachAware® that will be carried forward to its client base.
Hellen is Code-Switch’s Founder and Managing Director. She has 10 years experience of providing careers advice and training and development for PhD and postdoctoral researchers. She has overseen the successful delivery of more than 30 consultancy projects involving researchers from all over the UK and overseas. Hellen is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a PRINCE2 Agile Practitioner.
Code-Switch’s Project Management Consultant. Anna is an experienced project and programme manager. Anna has significant recent experience of public sector business transformation and business management and now works for the private sector where she is Programme Manager for a national UK banking initiative.
Kat is the Research Consultant at Code-Switch. Kat has held several postdoctoral roles at Leicester, Bristol and Greenwich universities. Her expertise are in quantitative research methods and statistics, research design and the preparation of bids for ESRC and The British Academy grants.
Alicia is an experienced senior business manager, consultant, MBA graduate and long-standing tutor for the University of Manchester Business School’s (AMBS) acclaimed MBA programmes. She has been teaching International Finance and Strategic Project Management for MBAs and Executive Education programmes over the past ten years. Alicia has over 20 years’ experience in international business and organisational development.
Naomi is a Research and Impact Consultant. During her 18 years in academia, she delivered multiple impactful research projects and has recently brought her research knowledge to market as a children’s book. As a consultant and business owner, she now provides evaluation, impact measurement, knowledge exchange, research training and coaching for organisations across the UK. Naomi is also a qualified career Coach and Mentor for researchers and academics.
Tosin is a technical project manager. Her project management experience has ranged from energy research and net-zero projects, energy (oil and gas) operations and consulting. She is currently supporting the delivery of a £7.9m project (HyPER Phase 2) and teaching on the Risk and Reliability Engineering module at Crandfield University. Tosin won the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) Top 50 Women in Engineering award in 2022 and has published several peer-reviewed research articles.
Kristi is a sociologist and consultant specialising in qualitative research, small business transformation, community outreach and evaluation involving multi-level processes and outcomes. She has 8 years of teaching experience in academic, industry and community contexts and has delivered successful projects with complex stakeholders engaging policy, media discourse, and UX research for growing SMEs in the UK and US.
This project is exploring the needs of secondary schools in relation to the development of foreign language conversation skills…