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!