Knowledge transfer about knowledge transfer

As a university Leeds Beckett ranks in the top 15 of universities nationally for KTP portfolio size, we’ve experienced rapid growth and more than 80% of our partnerships are with Small/Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and 75% are with Yorkshire-based businesses.  So we are in a good position to demonstrate how to develop and grow a portfolio of projects and how to take our regional, place-based strengths and then apply them to Qatar.

To give our guests a flavour of why KTP has been so successful (it’s been running for almost 50 years so the UK is clearly doing something right!) we looked at the principles of the scheme – the funding levels, the application process but by far the most impactful part of the visit was when our stakeholders took centre stage and spoke about their experiences.

KTPs have three key stakeholders – the business partner, the university and the associate who delivers the project on behalf of all parties.  We invited several of our partners and associates to join us throughout the week - they described their roles, the benefits of KTP to them as an individual and to the organisations they support.

Safe to say I think we’ve shown our guests that the bar at Leeds Beckett is set pretty high – the quality of our associates and what they deliver is truly inspiring.  Through their projects they build on their experience and know-how but grow and develop new skills and experience that make them stand-out and fast-track their careers.

For the businesses they gain impactful change projects that grow new markets, increase income and grow profitability.  And for our academics they get a chance to translate their knowledge and expertise into commercial projects that inform their research and that translate back into teaching our students.

And our visitors from Qatar – what did we learn from them? We found out more about the innovation ecosystem in Qatar, the aspiration to support more SME businesses and explored ideas about how it could work.   We discussed how the best bits of a 48 year old programme could be distilled into a new programme that would (dare I say it) be a touch less bureaucratic and a bit more agile to apply to!

I’m a huge advocate for the benefits of the KTP programme so it was a pleasure to be able to try and translate that knowledge to a new audience, to transfer our experiences and to celebrate a little about the success Leeds Beckett has experienced through our partners, our academic colleagues and most of all through our associates.