The partnership would see MSc students gain access to live projects to work on and get commercial experience.

Mesh Experience’s Vegan Tracker, which was launched in 2021 to track sentiment towards vegan lifestyles, has been opened to students to analyse.

Some of the students’ insights on the tracker have been used by Mesh Experience for thought leadership, with the company treating the project like a commercial project including a brief, proposals and debriefs.

In exchange, Mesh Experience has gained an academically rigorous context to their vegan dataset plus psychological models to frame their insights.

Lancaster students were given access to a live data set and a commercial project for their students to work on and gain experience from, with students also having the opportunity to continue working with Mesh Experience beyond the project.

Fiona Blades, founder and chief executive at Mesh Experience, said: “We’ve found the process of working with these students very stimulating and thought-provoking. We’ve been so impressed with the calibre of their insights and presentations. 

“Our mission is to help create and measure experiences that grow brands, people and society and so the tie-up with Lancaster offered us an opportunity to provide work experience to students which we hope they found useful.” 

Leslie Hallam, course director of the Psychology of Advertising MSc programme at Lancaster University, said: “It’s a great opportunity for our students to be able to work on projects that are rooted in a real business issue.

“It provides a timely way for them to apply what they’ve learnt on the course and gain experience in balancing academic thinking with real-life working practices. Our students have really benefited from interacting with and presenting to the team at Mesh Experience.”