Announcement
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships - Driving Business Growth Event
6 March 2023, 17:15 to 19:30, Location: Wood Centre for Innovation, Stansfeld Park, Quarry Rd, Headington, Oxford, OX3 8SB
6 March 2023, 17:15 to 19:30, Location: Wood Centre for Innovation, Stansfeld Park, Quarry Rd, Headington, Oxford, OX3 8SB
A Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) is a unique three-way collaboration that brings together world-class university experts, a qualified graduate and ambitious industry partners to accelerate strategic innovation and growth.
The Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) programme is a government funded framework for driving innovation and growth by linking a UK business with a university and a recent graduate. KTP has been operating for more than 40 years with some of the biggest names in business. Nationally, businesses that have taken part include companies as diverse as Dyson, Jaguar Land Rover, Sainsburys and Unilever.
A KTP enables a business to bring in new skills and the latest academic thinking in order to help deliver a specific, strategic innovation project. You access expertise that you don’t have in-house, and embed it in your business to become more competitive and productive. Unlike traditional consultancy, through its emphasis on knowledge transfer, the KTP programme helps develop lasting relationships for ongoing strategic innovation and sustainable growth.
Oxford Brookes University utilises the KTP programme to help drive innovation and productivity in the UK, and to ensure businesses remain competitive in a changing market and continue to grow and develop. Oxford Brookes University has partnered with a range of businesses on KTPs from technology companies to a legal practice. Examples include Sony and InterContinental Hotels.
“With success rates of 90%, and rising, your new project may be just months away.”
Anna Verghese, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships Manager
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships can help your business or organisation to create a step-change in a combination of some of these areas:
A KTP is for projects with ambitious levels of innovation, impact and challenge that result in significant wealth creation. It might be a new development within your sector or a chance to enter a different market.
A project can last from 1 to 3 years in one month blocks.
To take part, companies need to:
Part of the cost of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) is funded by a grant from the innovation agency Innovate UK, and other government co-funders. You apply for this in a competitive call for submissions.
For Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises the grant rate is 67% of the project cost and for large companies 50%. The remainder of the project cost is met by monthly cash payments from your company.
Project costs are variable. For a small or medium size company, government bodies, such as Innovate UK, contribute two-thirds of the cost. So for a typical project worth approximately £75,000 per annum, your company invests just £25,000 a year. That’s £25,000 a year to embed a recent graduate (KTP Associate) in your company, backed up by the weight of senior academics and the resources of our university, to bring new capability and wealth creation. In fact, the average increase in pre-tax profit for a business that takes part in KTP is over £1m per annum.
Employer Size | Funding Rate | Employer contribution (approx.) |
---|---|---|
Third Sector | 75% | £22-25k per year |
SME | 67% | £28-33k per year |
Large Business | 50% | £43-48k per year |
A key person in the partnership is the KTP Associate.
This is an ambitious recent graduate who is jointly recruited by the partners to implement the project in your business. Educated to a level appropriate for the project, the associate will be the conduit for change, transferring implementing and embedding the knowledge generated and providing feedback from you to the academic partner. The Associate will join the University’s payroll, but their place of work is in your organisation and they work as a member of your team. Academic staff from the University visit the company every week to guide and supervise the work.
The length of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships varies from 12 – 36 months, depending on the nature of the project and the requirements of your business.
A KTP offers:
Contact our KTP Office ktp@brookes.ac.uk to discuss your idea.
We will scope out a project with you, and work together on a grant application.
A successful KTP provides a rich source of innovation stories, data and testimonial to help showcase your success and raise the profile of the company or the professional standing of the academic.
As a business, KTP projects can provide a wealth of intriguing news stories, video clips and other content to add to the company’s marketing assets and engage the customer.
As an academic, groundbreaking research offers the opportunity not just to write academic papers but to collect real-world case study information for teaching purposes, as well as submissions for the Research Excellence Framework (REF) and the much-anticipated Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF), and University website. All of this helps raise the standing of the project within the relevant research community and maybe contribute to potential joint public speaking opportunities.
Oxford Brookes University is committed to sharing expertise and translating our knowledge into practical, commercial responses to real-world business challenges and this in turn increases our fund of knowledge as a University. Work undertaken through KTPs contributes to the University’s academic outputs including research papers and enriching teaching by providing in-depth, live case studies or access to industry partners and experts.
Knowledge Transfer Partnership benefits for Oxford Brookes University include:
We champion KTPs through our Research and Business Development Office. We discuss with businesses the challenges they face and identify the best academic team to help. We engage expert thinkers and innovative specialists who are pleased to embrace problem-solving.
We will with you to develop a structured project aligned to your strategic objectives and helps apply for KTP funding. With success rates of 90%, and rising, your new project may be just months away.
Oxford Brookes University will work in partnership with you to develop a successful KTP application and manage the project from start to completion – ensuring a long-term boost to your organisation. We are on hand throughout the project and will work with you:
Take the first steps to explore a KTP opportunity with Oxford Brookes. We’ll work with you to develop a successful KTP application, recruit your KTP graduate, and partner with you to boost your business.
A KTP typically lasts between 1-3 years. Once complete many partnerships go on to apply for future funding to continue to build on their partnership either involving the same academic team or a different combination. The criteria remain the same, so be thinking about ‘next steps’ while the current project is in play and consider how the company or organisation might grow again through KTP.
Directorate of Research, Innovation and Enterprise