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EUPRIO September 2011 25th Anniversary ConferenceCommunicating Knowledge Transfer
Sue Gunn, Director, Research and Enterprise, City University London
EUPRIO mission….
- to create a network to assist members
- to promote professional excellence
- to promote exchange of ideas and techniques
- I hope to follow that in this session
Overview of the next 3 hours (with break)
A. Introductions to the group and KT communication issues faced
B. KT as a profession in the UK – the last 10 years - how it has been
financed and supported – Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF)
Case study Hertfordshire v City University
B. Interactive Creative problem solving session
Ideas to meet our challenges in communicating KT
Introductions
You will be introducing 1 other person
Take 10 minutes (5 each) to ask name, current post, experience and
one key KT communication challenge facing them that they would
be keen to explore more
<put only the challenge on to a post-it.>
Plus what they would REALLY like to be doing right now in life if there
were no barriers!!
Knowledge Transfer (Knowledge Exchange – mutual benefit?)
“is about transferring good ideas, research results and skills between universities and the business and the wider community to enable innovative new products and services to be developed” (www.ost.gov.uk)
10 years of ‘£’ supported Knowledge Transfer
1999 - 2001 start of funding- rounds 1 and 2 – what the landscape looked like then...REF over
2003 Lambert review of HE/Business interaction
2004 Round 3 of funding based on success criteria and capacity
2007 Round 4 funding – strategic plans
2007 Lord Sainsbury Report The Race to the Top
2008 Innovation Nation White Paper (DIUS 2008)
2009 Report to government from PACEC and Cambridge University to assess any economic
and social benefits from funding. HIGHLIGHTS to follow
2010 New Government - spending review cuts but Round 5 announced – 4 years to 2014/15.
How we support KT at City University
Commercialisation of Intellectual property(patents,licensing, spin outs etc)
London City Incubator/Enterprise Education
Research Grants support for contract and collaborative research projects
Private and Institutional consultancy support
Proof of Concept awards
Follow- on funding researcher bid support to demonstrate impact
Budgets direct to 7 schools for local initiatives
Research & Enterprise Team until this month
How the £1.6M KT budget from Government budget works at City
£700k Central team costs – staff, office etc
£150k Legal costs, patents etc (Schools pay half)
£ 500 Services (e.g proof of Concept, marketing, incubator, Enterprise
education)
750k allocated direct to schools
........£500k shortfall from income generated by CPD team p/a
Highlights from 2009 report into KT.....
Initial concerns about emphasis on KE impacting on traditional
teaching/research proven unfounded - synergies realised
Considerable progress in embedding culture shift/positive attitudes
towards KE but still in transition
31% spent on dedicated KT staff to 2004 – 52% pIanned 2004 - 2009
KT offices becoming very professional and pro-active in opportunity
generation but key constraint is attracting suitably qualified staff
Highlights continued
KE income 2001-07 rose by 12% per annum to £1.94 billion in 2007.
Marketing/communications spend 1.2% to 4.3% of total, but still only
37% of organisations engaged know about KT office
45% academics perceived impact in department. 45% had no contact
with KT office even if they knew about it
Senior management support growing – balance differences
Government policy and funding = main drivers of KT activity
High research Intensive v Low research intensive universities
High Low
Most spend proportionally on dedicated KT staff
Most spend on services such as promotion, schemes with businesses
Support from management but related to teaching and research mission
Support from management but for commercial activity
Large corporations and public sector main target for KT activity
SMEs main target for KT activity
Growth of KT support UK Organisations
• AURIL – conference, vacancies, policy input, CPD
• PRAXIS and UNICO (now PRAXISUNICO) www.praxisunico.org.uk
• IKT – mentoring/CPD (AURIL links), conferences
• http://www.researchintoktpractice.co.uk/IKT/about.php)
• (AUTM US, SNITTS Sweden, AESTTP EU, Global Innovation
Network – communities of practice)
Many KT publications and brochures
Government
Business organisations, (CBI,IOD)
Design Council
Academic papers growing – PhD studies starting
Every university has a web page and brochure
Where are we heading now?………….
Research Excellence Framework + focus
Funding secure for 2011 to 2015. 12,500 professionals involved - roles –
promoter, innovator, gate keeper, transformer. Chamelions!
More de-centralisation – control to facilitation
Teams that fit the local situation – eg City – space defined by institution
Academic promotions (and recruitment) based on KT
More focus on INDUSTRY benefitting from IP – Glasgow free IP
Director
Enterprise Education Administrative
Assistant
Administrator
Pro- Vice-Chancellor Research and Enterprise
Technology Transfer &
Commercialisation (IP etc)
Professional Development
Courses
Marketing Exec / Bus. Development Manager
London City Incubator
My team from October 2011. Costs down by £400k p/a
A tale of two Universities - Case study
The University of Hertfordshire (UoH)and City University, London (CuL)
Drivers for a university to be enterprising – in service of society, in
service of the commercial world or in service of the academic
mission.
Hertfordshire Uni (2000 to 2005) City university (2005 to 2010)
Ex Polytechnic, industry and campus based
University status 1961Non-Campus
V-C with business background V-C leading academic
£500k first fund allocated 2001 £250k first fund allocated 2001
Low research base Medium research base
HEIF used mainly for marketing, central activity, partnerships
HEIF used centrally for services for academics - large amounts to schools
Mission statement business window Mission academic research excellence
Only university in Herts County 32 other universities in London
Expertise register, CRM system No register, No CRM system
£2.9M allocated 2010 £1.6M allocated 2010
Two business facing web sites and brochures
Herts - http://www.herts.ac.uk/business-services/home.cfm
http://content.yudu.com/Library/A1orn8/CredentialsBrochurev/
resources/index.htm?referrerUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yudu.com
%2Fitem%2Fdetails%2F204198%2FCredentials-Brochure-v6
City - http://www.city.ac.uk/for-business
http://my.page-flip.co.uk/?userpath=00000013/00012513/00055352/
Session 2 – The issues around communicating KT to relevant audiences
KT services and motivation are often still not understood by
businesses, staff or academics, still!
Communication Challenges expressed at City by KT team
Main interest = research agenda
SME’s do not think of universities as a resource
Lack of expertise register
No Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems – hard to
build on links we have with employers allready
Challenges continued
Professional teams have other priorities eg undergraduate focus
Lack of people and resources dedicated to it
Marketing team focussed on student message and brand building
Language difficulties (academic v lay person)
Bureaucracy generally (eg web rules)
And more...from the marketing team this time.
Finding a balance in the way research is written up so that academics
don’t feel their work is being dumbed down
Journalists wanting to see a finished, working solution, not an early
stage prototype (even if it does have the potential to change the
world)
The focus of communications activity being on other things (student
recruitment, brand building) so research gets left behind
And again....
Academics not keeping marketing up-to-date with what they are doing
or being reluctant to engage in communications activity because of
other pressures on their time
Research being “blue sky” or esoteric, so that commercial benefits to
SMEs are difficult to spot and convey
Being able to demonstrate what positive benefits of the research are to
be found to the man or woman in the street
Academics challenges
2/3rd say no time for KT due to other commitments
28% say there are insufficient rewards incentives for it
Previous bad experience/generational differences
Task - Re word the challenges in small groups
Try and use 7 words or less
Wouldn’t it be nice if....WIBNI
All will go up on wall on new charts
Top 3 using ticks. Identify owners of these
Brainwriting challenge – generate 50 ideas
1 minute on each box - ideas around meeting the task/challenge
- Can be based on the idea before, or start a new one if stuck
Rules – as many as possible, move on, defer judgement
Prompts – Imagine you had all the resources you needed/magic wand
What are some ideas you can think of for achieving this?
How to .....How might we....In what ways might we...tackle this?
PRIZE FOR ONE BEST IDEA OVER TWO MASTERCLASSES SESSIONS
Assessing an idea
We will then pick top 2 using stickers (red best green second best)
based on:
• Attractiveness, those that really seem on target/critical
• Most promising
• Those that have most advantages/Compatibility/Practicality
Thank you everyone!