AcademicBusiness Links The RITTS London Experience

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Academic-Business Links The RITTS London
Experience

• James Dick
• Project Manager
• Director, Business Enterprise Services in Europe

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AGENDA

• Background to RITTS London in 1999
• What our research revealed
• Lessons
• Our Action Plan
• Interventions and Instruments
• WestFocus a contemporary case study

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Regional Knowledge Infrastructure
Before RITTS London there had been no bottom-up
audit of the regions innovation assets and
deficits, nor any mapping of the knowledge
infrastructure at the level of institutions of
higher education and research in the context of
supporting regional innovation strategies.
Nevertheless London was regarded as a world-class
centre of innovation excellence.

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The Innovation Test Bed
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Business Support in the Region

• Many strands of provision causing confusion
• Provision of services compartmentalised
• No co-ordination of services provided
• Over-provided with service providers
• Providers chasing the money but not addressing
  the need
• Political success measured by amount of funding
  spent rather than the impact on regional
  competitiveness
• Inertia and resistance to change in Academia

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The Link between Training and Innovativeness and
the Take-up of Technology
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The Importance of HE in the Regional Innovation
Mix

• The academic network should be a regions
  greatest resource for the generation of knowledge
  on Innovation, Technology and Business Management
• Universities and colleges should be the main
  Innovation Capital of a region
• HE institutions should be a key driver of
  regional innovation culture
• HE institutions should be a regional gateway for
  international dialogue and exchange
• Pressure on HE funding should not be an excuse
  for ignoring business needs

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Barriers to HE-SME Dialogue

• Unchanging attitudes in some HE institutions
• Internal conflict for staff and resources between
  education, research and business support
• Focus on more complex areas of knowledge takes
  precedence over perceived low priority business
  needs
• HE institutons are attracted to large firms that
  pay well for research on major projects (that fit
  in better with the academic cycle)
• National / International focus supersedes local
  contact
• Staff unwilling to undertake short-term
  consultancy and management unwilling to encourage
  it
• Initiatives and programmes that are funding
  rather than user driven
• Little or no funding provision for SME / local
  support in HE budgets
• HE institutions have not woken up to the shift
  to regional innovation policy by the EU and the
  inherent

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The Gap between Higher Education SME Sector (1)

• The SMEs said
• Academic training has no practical value for
  day-to-day business needs
• Academic training uses out-of-date technologies
  and does not keep pace with changes in the
  market-place
• Academic training is effective only for subjects
  where the academic expertise directly relates to
  the business activity
• Universities are elitist and talk down to us
• Our needs are high tech but academics see them
  as low tech

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The Gap between Higher Education SME Sector (2)

• HE Institutions said
• Our prime focus is on education not SME
  development
• Our qualitative focus is on the annual RAE
  (Research Assessment Exercise) typified by the
  published research output our academics
• High RAE ratings lever funding which is
  re-circulated into education. It does not support
  SME development
• SME needs are low tech and not cost effective
  in research terms

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What Did We Learn?(people werent talking to
each other)

• HE Institutions want concrete added value
  solutions that enhance academic values associated
  with research while being focused on achieving
  commercial goals
• SMEs want concrete value-added solutions that
  enhance business values associated with research,
  product and intellectual business development
• Poor communication between the academic and the
  SME worlds is a serious barrier to raising the
  level of regional innovation and competitiveness
• Maximise the use of champions, intermediaries and
  peer group networks. If they dont function or
  exist, create them
• There must be a financial dimension
• There must be a political dimension
• Academics and Business owners rarely create a
  bridge of communication spontaneously that is
  the task of the regional authorities and the
  national policy makers

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BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN UNIVERSITY SMEProject
Champions Professor David Miles (Kingston
University) and Chris Yapp (ICL Lifelong Learning

• The Action Plan
• Local Champions in universities and SME
  intermediaries
• Networking forum for academics, researchers and
  entrepreneurs
• Task Force to recommend on incentives for
  universities
• Interregional benchmarking (Innovating Regions in
  Europe network)
• Pilot to extend scope of Knowledge Transfer
  P/ships
• Trail-blazer Pilot with Kingston White Space
  Studio

• The Objectives
• Bridge the communication gap
• Create incentives to action
• Create Win-Win situations
• Trade up the action to the London context and the
  LDA

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The London Development AgencysInnovation
Strategy for London drew on the RITTS London
Report and includes the following strategic
priority
Harnessing Londons Knowledge Base
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Interventions Instruments

• The Knowledge Transfer Partnership (formerly the
  Teaching College Scheme)
• The Innovative Cluster Fund
• City Growth Strategy
• Higher Education Funding Council for England
  (HEFCE)
• HEROBAC Higher Education Reach-out to Business
  and the Community
• HEIF Higher Education Innovation Fund

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Knowledge Transfer Partnership

• Government sponsored mechanism for companies to
  collaborate with universities by using graduates
  to work on RD projects
• Win-Win situation
• Company gets a graduate for up to 2 years at
  heavily subsidised employment cost
• Company managers helped to make strategic
  step-change and increase profitability
• Graduates gain experience on a defined RD
  project at a market-level salary
• Academics gain experience of working and
  problem-solving in an industrial environment,
  with enhanced opportunity for publishing article
  and conference papers

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How WestFocus supports Enterprise
Entrepreneurship
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The WestFocus Consortium

• WestFocus was awarded 10.6m under the HEIF 2
  program, which runs from 1st Aug 2004 until 31st
  July 2006

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WestFocus Activities

• The WestFocus KE is based in the Kingston
  University Enterprise Exchange
• Business Units
• Entrepreneurship Centre
• University Talent
• Business Acceleration

• 7 Knowledge Networks
• Sustainability in Practice
• Life Sciences
• Health
• Social Inclusion
• Materials Manufacturing
• Creative Industries
• ICT

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The WestFocus Portal

• There are 12 different web sites with over 230
  pages of content
• The Corporate web site contains
• News from across WestFocus
• Events Registration
• Marketing downloads (Newsletters / Brochures
  etc..)
• Case Studies
• Since May 1st 2005 the portal has had
• 4 million hits
• 1,000,000 page views
• 23,000 unique visitors
• An average of 370 visitors per day
• The WestFocus Intranet for all staff (about 250
  users) covering
• Content Management
• Event Management
• Contacts Management (2700 Companies / 3500
  contacts)
• Project Management
• Reporting
• Marketing

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Entrepreneurship Centre

• The EC activities are Programme based sets of
  linked innovative activities that may combine
  events, seminars, training, downloads, eLearning,
  competitions etc.
• Programmes since May 2005 have included
• Bright Ideas Competition (100 entrants)
• 2x 1 week Enterprisers School (60 attendees)
• 3x I day Masterclasses (40 attendees)
• 3x WestFocus Fellows training (100 attendees)
• Enterprising Business Awards (20 businesses)
• Also EC has launched 7 eLearning Entrepreneurship
  modules that are run interactively on their web
  site

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University Talent web site

• Open access for graduates / students to SME
  vacancies for
• Permanent / temporary jobs
• Placements / KTPs
• 350 vacancies advertised since August 05
• 375 students signed up for email alerts
• Companies can register on-line, free of charge,
  to advertise their vacancies
• They are sent a Username/password by the system
• They can then upload their vacancies onto the
  system
• Following a sanity check by UT staff, the
  vacancies are displayed on the web site
• Companies then continue manage their own
  vacancies
• Graduates / Students can browse the vacancies,
  register and then apply on-line to those jobs of
  interest
• In addition UT has handled around 24 STEP
  programmes

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Business Acceleration

• Business Creation
• Over 100 research projects, across the WestFocus
  HEIs, have been identified assessed, with 45
  of them now being taken forward for their next
  steps towards commercialisation
• The Virtual Company (TVC)
• The Virtual Company (TVC) scheme, originally
  developed by Business Link Wessex, and now run by
  WestFocus, has assisted 5 inventors and start-ups
  along the path of commercialisation
• Business Support
• 130 WBL schemes (mainly Masters degrees) have
  been run over the past 12 months
• 16 KTPs have been run over the past 12 months

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Knowledge Networks

• Many of the networks have both academic and
  non-academic partners in the various projects
  underway
• The purpose of these networks is both to help the
  community understand and apply the results of
  current research, and to direct future research
  to focus on more business relevant topics
• There is also an element of skills transfer
  through training courses and Seminars given by
  the networks e.g. Sustainable Design lectures,
  and the Enviro-Entrepreneur Summer Schools

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• Thank You for listening

James Dick Director Business Enterprise Services
in Europe jamesd_at_businessenterprise-europe.co.uk
44 20 8814 1917