GUIDE TO THE FUNCTION OF A
KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER OFFICE
Funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union
Contents 03 06 08 10 11
How to facilitate Knowledge Transfer
The Triple Helix
Knowledge Transfer -an intellectual property approach
Barriers to Knowlege Transfer
Challenge Academy - Case Study
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How to facilitate Knowledge Transfer
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One facet of facilitating knowledge transfer is in creating an enterprise eco-system, where enterprise is at the core of the organisations values
Knowlegdge transfer
and management are of special interest to academics and practitioners world-wide. One facet of facilitating knowledge transfer is in creating an enterprise eco-system, where enterprise is at the core of the organisations values. In the illustration below four stages of enterprise are explored: 1. It a very personal level “who am I” and “what am I” explores individual’s values and standards. This can be developed at individual or organisational levels. 2. Explores idea generation and validation. This develops a fail fast mentality within individuals and organisations. 3. Develops the operational model and customer acquisition too again validate the Idea and business planning. 4. Focuses on scalability and exit. The use of this model gives focus on the multiple aspects of both knowledge transfer and posable business start-ups resulting in the knowledge transferred. nurtured more at primary and secondary school.
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The Enterprise Wheel
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The three components of the model are based on interactions between the following elements and their associated initial role. The Triple Helix
model of innovation refers to a set of interactions between academia, industry and government, with the aim of fostering economic and social development. This framework was first theorized by Henry Etzkowitz and Loet Leydesdorff With the publication of “The Triple Helix, University-Industry-Government Relations. This concept has given rise to new intermediary offices such as Technology Transfer offices and Knowledge Transfer offices. The three components of the model are based on interactions between the following elements and their associated initial role. Universities engaging in research, industry producing commercial goods and governments that are regulating markets. Within a dynamic environment each component evolves to adopt some of the characteristics of the other institution, this leads to the development of hybrid institutions with bilateral interactions co-existing between the partners. The strength of the interactions between the three components is set within a top down implementation. This creates a stronger and more integrated model there has been a significant shit to knowledge – based society and economies giving a much greater role for universities to impact on economic outputs. Indeed as innovation is increasingly based on scientific knowledge the role of universities as creators of economic development .
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ACADEMIA Key of knowledge ETHICS AND COOPERATION Networks
R&D
NT &E N VA TIO NO IN
ns
tio
Op
Investment Employment Business Sophistication
INNOVATION & ENTREPRENEURSHIP
ER
sta b
G OV
K ey of
Investment Employment Business Sophistication
er
NT
int
ME
le
ac
Partnerships and support; cooperation
t
ns
IN D Pr od U S TR uc Y ti o nk ey
P HI RS EU EN PR
So
al
litic
DYNAMICS FOR COMPETITIVINES AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Partnerships and support; cooperation
IP SH UR NE RE EP TR EN
Po
RE
N& IO AT
OV INN
Investment Employment Business Sophistication
H Cr um ea an tiv e C and ap ita l
cia
Teaching and Training Partnerships and support; cooperation
io
ENVIROMENT d xt e an ic ont om l C on ca Ec logi no ch Te
la Co nd C nt ex ultu ra t l
SOCIETY
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ECONOMY Political Context
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Knowledge Transfer an Intellectual Property Approach (IP) A knowledge transfer office will need to consider the management of intellectual property form research conducted within the University or as a result of industry collaboration. There are three fundamental IP models.
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Licensing model where an invention is created and disclosed to the Knowledge Transfer Office who will then manage a process to file for patents and licenses.
Collaboration Model
Venture creation model
The collaboration models foundation is in the contractual governance of Intellectual Property
The foundation of the venture creation model is of a controllable idea
The foundation of intellectual property is contained within the Invention Disclosure which is normally managed by a Knowledge Transfer office the key points of a Invention Disclosure are detailed below
Collaboration setting
•
Required collaboration elements
• • • • •
Patentable inventions and other intellectual property rights. The named inventor or inventors. Technical description of the invention . General purpose - what is the inventions value proposition. Commercial potential. Publication plan – there may be conflict between research outputs and commercial confidence requirements.
• • • •
• • • • • • • •
Research projects. Research Consortia. Knowledge and innovation clusters. Research and innovation arenas.
Framework program regulation. National regulation. Model program contract. Program contracts and policy. Model project contract. Project contract and policy. Organisational solutions and stakeholders. Internal contracts of all parties-identifying ownership, access, use and pre conditions
The idea • • • •
Unique solution. Interested researcher or student. A pre business plan. IP-based controllability.
The innovation system • • • •
Incubators. Accelerators. Seed capitalists. 2nd stage venture capital.
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Obtaining resources
Identifying a market opportunity
Research & development
GING NA
Protecting Intellectual Property
TI
TH E
ON
MA
Distribution, sales, service
I N N O VA
Promotion Product design Manufacture Obtaining supplies
Differing types of innovation 1 9
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Process
Implementation of a new and significantly improved production or delivery method.
Product
Introduction of new or significantly improved product that generates new customer value.
Incremental
Service
Introduction of new or significantly improved service that generates new customer value.
9 TYPES OF
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Outcome Driven
The jobs the customer is trying to get done are used as input to the innovation process.
Business Model
New ways in which an organization creates, delivers, and captures value.
3
INNOVATION
Small continuous improvements to existing products, services and processes.
2
5
4
Disruptive
Innovations that displace established companies or industries.
Breakthrough
Innovation that generate a paradigm shift in technology or science.
Organization
New ways in which people manage and share resources.
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Barriers to Knowledge Transfer
One of the barriers to successful knowledge transfer are innovation behaviours and blockers. Companies’ investments in innovation are stymied by the day today routines and habits that stifle original thinking. The key role of a knowledge transfer office is to break down the behaviour and blockers in government and industry. The Leadership from a knowledge transfer office needs to identify the innovation blockers and neutralize then with value add interventions and enablers. This can be defined as “something different that creates value” something different can be a big breakthrough, but it can also be incremental improvement that adds valve to a process of product. This added value refers back to the development of an enterprise culture that is a key role of the Knowledge transfer office. Knowledge Transfer offices need to identify behaviour enablers and artefacts that work across industries and within organisations. While each KT office will develop different strategies, they all serve the purpose of breaking down organizational habits and developing new partnerships Some examples of behaviour change platforms. • •
•
• • • • • • • • • • •
Help employees to think and act like business owners- involve all staff in generating ideas to boost business performance. Eliminate fear of failure and lean from mistakes- examine what has been learned and how to prevent similar failures in the future this can be achieved by posting and publicly celebrating project failures and acts as a starting point for future projects. Identify threats to new initiatives and develop defence platform against them. – before starting a new project bring the team together to review what could fail develop a risk register. Include a cross- examination in which the group argue a success case and a failure case. Work with partners and keep an open mind constantly asking what if. Adopted a problem- solver, versus a fault finder mind-set. Avoid shutting down new ideas by saying “this is the way things are done here”. Focus intensely on customers. Regularly create customer profiles and the customer journey. Build cross-functional teams with expertise and viewpoint from all stakeholders. Design experiments to learn more about key assumptions. Ask what don’t we know within the knowledge transfer. Plan for different scenarios and alternative outcomes. Develop ways for people to bring forward ideas forward or speak up when something is not working. Own the outcomes and decisions, without shrinking responsibility or playing the blame game.
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Challenge Academy. A Case Study for Sucessful Engagement
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Challenge Academy
represents an excellent model for engaging with the three principal stakeholders engaging in knowledge transfer; Students, Academics, and Organisations (these may be private sector, public sector, or third sector sources). It allows a triangulation of benefits and a fluid transfer of knowledge between the partners, to be fully achieved. The Challenge Academy model has evolved at the University of Wolverhampton over the past five years. During 2015/16 the Challenge Academy concept was successfully piloted within the Faculty of Social Sciences, working with ten organisations and one hundred students on pertinent business challenges. In the summer of 2016, a concept paper detailing the results and effectiveness of the pilot was taken to the university executive seeking approval to roll out the project to all Faculties. Strategic university support was secured at this point. The subsequent phase of development established a Challenge Academy Academic & Administrative Group (CAAG) to refine and develop the operational framework into an effective cross-Faculty internal/external process. It was important to secure benefits that would add value all stakeholder groups but the central process had to allow students to engage in short periods of real-life interaction (work packages) in businesses or institutions.
Employer engagement
Employer engagement CHALLENGE ACADEMY
Academic Base Innovation Accelerator Products / Services
» Faculty linkage » Applied Research » Curriculum design » Income generation
Student Base » Modules » Placements » Employability » Application of knowledge / skills
Monitoring and continuity
Student / Graduate recruitment and engagement
Graduates » Empoyability » Application of knowledge / skills » Consultancy
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The organisational structure in operation at the university, supported an employability champion in each faculty. The operational model established a hub and spoke framework, whereby the KT office (Business Solutions) retained centralised control of Challenge Academy. A central manager (the employability champion for Faculty of Social Sciences) and administrator were appointed, together with an operational budget, which was monitored by the Head of Business Solutions. The central manager then established a direct channel of engagement with the employability champion in each faculty (who was supported by an intern). This framework enabled relevant leads to be passed to each faculty and at the same time a reporting process was established back into Business Solutions. This operational model meant that each challenge could be tracked and any delay in meeting targets could be addressed. The CAAG met formally each month in order to report on progress against targets, and to identify development opportunities.
Operational Model Students
Employability Principal Lecturer
Faculty of Science and Engineering
LEAD FACULTY: Faculty of Social Sciences
Reporting
Employability Principal Lecturer
Admin
Academics
BUSINESS SOLUTIONS / CAREERS AND ENTERPRISE
Employability Principal Lecturer
Faculty of Education, Health and Wellbeing
Faculty of Arts
Employability Principal Lecturer
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Accountability: • •
•
•
The CAAG Chair (Dr Rob Harris) was responsible for organising regular informal meetings with the CAAG members in order to provide reviews and updates on activities and achievements to date. Individual lead Faculty CAAG members were given responsibility for growing the capacity and capability of their Faculty academic members of staff and student base to engage with the Challenge Academy model, providing regular reports on progress against individual Faculty targets. The CAAG chair established and managed an academic and student database. This dovetailed into the internal Careers driven EPloy system and the University’s procurement database. It also utilised an existing EU funded Crowdsourcing portal for Challenge Academy. challengeacademy. eu/. This portal allowed names and interests/skills of network participants (organisations, students, academic mentors, external mentors) to be held and directed to specific interventions. Furthermore, the European crowdsource network would also mirror the project in the EU project participants own Countries and could be drawn in to engage with relevant international business opportunities/problems as identified. This was seen to be particularly useful for European export focused interventions. A strong working relationship was developed with ICSTE, a Lisbon University of Lisbon and further joint developments are envisaged. At the six-month period (June 2017) of operation the CAAG chair convened a progress meeting involving Business participants, students, academics, and CAAG members. The aim of this meeting was to conduct a review on the projects effectiveness, accomplishments, issues and concerns. It was also an opportunity to discuss areas for development. An output from this meeting was the creation of the Challenge Academy Seminar & Training (CAST) programme. CAST is a programme of focused and themed training sessions delivered by cutting edge practitioners. The first theme was digital enhancement and events focused on Linked In, Digital Marketing Communications, creation of mobile video content, and Social Media engagement for business development.
Engagement methods: The Challenge Academy (CA) concept is based around offering external organisations access to The University’s student and academic base to work on a pertinent current business challenge which they are facing. Challenge Academy provides a consultancy network of students (UG & PG), who undertake defined research and interventions on behalf of businesses. The duration of the interventions is typically be between 5 -30 hours of work. The CA students receive support from academic and practitioner mentors who oversee projects and add academic support, advice and guidance, where needed. Supported by Business Solutions and Careers and Enterprise, students offer added benefits in the form of a package of support aimed at increasing their employability. Operational models for the full internal collaboration, awareness raising, and communication channels are critical for success. Dr Rob Harris, as CAAG Chair led on the creation of process flowchart templates for each Faculty – working in consultation with the Faculty CAAG members these were subsequently refined to reflect individual Faculty requirements. The hub and spoke model achieved a platform to help support, embed and engender cross-Faculty working practices. Marketing support materials were designed and used to inform and attract interest amongst the three key stakeholder groups, students, academics, and external organisations. External engagement with businesses: In the first instance, Companies submit their requirements (in the form of a ‘Challenge brief’) to the central source (Business Solutions). The CAAG Chair
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(Dr Rob Harris) receives all enquiries and conducts an initial assessment to align the ‘challenge’ to the most appropriate Faculty. The lead Faculty CAAG member then receives the ‘Challenge’ to align to their faculty academic and student capabilities. If more than one Faculty is involved the Faculty undertaking the first elements of the challenge will take ownership of the companies challenge and ensure a smooth transition into the other participating faculty via a handover with the other Faculty CAAG member. Once the lead Faculty has agreed they have the capability (i.e.: an academic lead has been identified, approached and participation agreed) and capacity (a suitable cohort of students is available) to progress, the company challenge can be accepted and the company notified. The CAAG administrator confirms the project suitability with the company partner. If suitable students cannot be readily identified the challenge is then advertised on the university’s registered student network (A similar process/system exists in the Student Union’s Volunteer Central). Dependent on requirements and complexities the project may be broken up into ‘chunks’ of expertise or lie within a single area. Ideally, several students would be involved on each challenge in order to utilise their own unique skills and knowledge, having the flexibility to transfer on and off the project as their skills dictate, with the CAAG Chair admin person and the lead faculty academic managing the process in to make it as seamless as possible. This will provide sound management of customer expectations helping avoid a single point of failure. It was envisaged that each project would entail 6 - 8 hours of involvement from the Academic Mentor, including research and mentoring time. However this is was a guideline only and some projects have exceeded this estimate. In reality, the timeline of each project has varied greatly dependent on requirements, from 5 hours to 30 hours research to longer periods of intervention/ consultancy (particularly in IT focused interventions). Typically, the challenges last no longer than one Semester as the University currently runs other schemes which would be more suitable over longer timeframes. Internal engagement with the Faculties: Once an organisation has identified a ‘challenge’ that they wish to pursue and this has been logged within Business Solutions (BS), a BS representative would approach the CAAG Chair to identify which Faculty is best placed to take it forward and whether it fits the CA Challenge criteria. It is important, due to the commercial timeline, that projects are either accepted or rejected within a reasonable timeframe, ideally 24hr-48hr period. It was expected that the student and academic team matched to the challenge would communicate with the organisation and set timelines for the challenge to be completed by and so ensure expectations are appropriately managed. However, depending on the time of year, it would be expected that work could commence on ‘Challenges’ ideally within 7-14 days. The process was as follows: • • • • • •
Business submits their requirements (Challenge) to Business Solutions (BS). If the business enters the University by another means their details and challenge will still need to be registered in BS. The Challenge is assessed by CAAG Chair for fit against the CA brief and criteria. CAAG Chair aligns a lead Faculty to the Challenge. CAAG lead Faculty academic reviews and identifies skills required. Academic promotes the opportunity within the internal CA Network and assembles either individuals or a selected group (up to a maximum of 10) of students with appropriate skills. Academic matches student skills to requirements and approaches students to agree a work plan.
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• • •
Student starts working on project. Academic provides assistance, monitoring/mentoring and reviews project before presenting the business with feedback. Student updates CV with relevant skills and experience gained.
Successful Challenges have been implemented through one of three mechanisms (or a combination): 1. Student Modules: Cohorts working on a live assessment. 2. Individual Student volunteered input. 3. Applied dissertations / work-based projects / research. Student module engagement has proven to be the most popular and effective method of engagement. Student enrolment (individual volunteering): A fundamental key aspect of Challenge Academy is the ability to engage with a large and diverse student base. Acting as an enabler, the students apply their theoretical knowledge to a current business issue whilst receiving guidance and support from an academic supervisor. For a student to participate on the project they were required to do the following: • • • •
Student submits an ‘application to join’ form. The application would then be assessed by the CAAG Faculty lead academic and either granted or rejected. ‘Bank of student details and skills held on a Portal system (Challengeacademy.eu or EPLOY). Additional induction training on ‘employability’ offered to the registered students by Careers Service.
Business Solutions, Careers, Life Long Learning (LLL) and Procurement departments have been a key source of organisational participants providing ‘challenges’ and supporting the development of marketing materials/and marketing communication activities. Careers Service agreed to take responsibility for ensuring students are provided with induction training and for safeguarding measures. The Faculty of Social Science (steered by its Employability Principal Lecturers) provide academic mentoring and have where feasible drawn in wider academic and student involvement. This has typically been through student assignments, seminars, visits, guest speakers etc. Students who signed up for Challenge Academy have been provided with notifications of forthcoming employability events, speaker sessions, and training opportunities, through the portal message board. Internal opportunities to engage with the wider student base have been pursued wherever possible (such as the Careers Events, Enterprise Week, and the University’s Career Development where students can engage with various activities and events to enhance their personal development and career prospects). These are critical events to engage with in order to raise the profile of the Challenge Academy. Challenge & Student Matching: • •
•
Company submits requirements (Challenge) using application form into Business Solutions. CAAG Chair then assesses the ‘challenge’ which is either granted or rejected. If granted it is then aligned to a lead Faculty. If rejected the companies details are given back to BS so that other opportunities to work with the UoW are explored. The CAAG Faculty lead academic ensures that the company requirements
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•
are matched to student skills. Appropriate students selected. Appropriate academic engaged. Academic and Student ‘Project team’ introduced to business and further scoping undertaken. Project undertaken.
• • •
Outcome introduced back into company. Company completes follow up form. Student adds skills and experience to CV.
• • •
Staff (CAG Admin-Central point for Challenge Academy; CAI-Intern; ML-Module Leader; FL-Faculty Lead; BDM-Business Dev Mgr)
Copy to CAG Admin
Challenge assigned to Volunteer or ML
Y
No, passed to CAG Admin
CAI: send date, Volunteer info, back to company
(*-Identified Modules)
Project work Mid point review
Check progress on Project work
Quality Check
CAI: Promotes brief to * ML’s & FL / BDM
Delayed start possible
Assigned as Mentor
Enquiry received
CAI: sends Start date, Format, back to company
CAI: Complete timesheets Handover checklist Capture case study
Quality Check
Sem / Module based coursework
CAI: as above Student: update skills, cv, Emp Awd Company Testimony, etc.
Student (Challenge Academy Volunteer) Mid point review
FL assigns - Mentor
Register online skills and availability
Check email or online for Challenge opportunity
Opportunity taken up, inform CAI. Confirm spec, meet Mentor
Project work, weekly feedback on progress during project Mid point review
Company
Post Challenge online or call CAG / BDM
Notification of take up from CAI / CAG Admin
Spec, timescale & expectations confirmed and agreed
CAI Determine if H&S req’d
5 day response
Mid point review
Complete check
Project work, receive timely updates on project Mid point review
Quality check
CAI: contacts to assess further opportunity Company: Testimony completed
Marketing: Profile raising internally was a fundamental priority and to support and drive this communication the University’s central marketing team was engaged to ensure maximum exposure was obtained. A small marketing budget was made available to help with the production of posters, flyers, pop-up banners, web presence and other associated marketing collateral. Other merchandising material and giveaways were purchased to be distributed at targeted events. Business development Managers were briefed and promoted Challenge Academy at business events and networking sessions wherever possible.
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Challenge Academy provides a consultancy network of studentes, who complete short-term projects on behalf of Organizations.
2018/19 Performance Monitoring: The University’s Challenge Academy programme continues to offer Organisations access to its student and academic base in order to develop solutions to contemporary business challenges. Challenge Academy provides a consultancy network of students, who complete short-term projects on behalf of Organisations. Participating businesses and students receive support from academic and practitioner mentors who oversee projects and add academic advice and guidance where needed. Students benefit from a package of support aimed at increasing their employability, and businesses gain access to the talent and knowledge of our student and academic base. Challenge Academy was created to address key employability goals set out in the University’s strategic plan: • • •
50% of academic modules to have employer, practitioner, professional engagement. 50% of students to have work experience, volunteering, internship, work based learning as part of their course. Enhance and extend extra-curricular opportunities for engagement with external partners.
The initiative is actively supported by Careers Enterprise & The Workplace, Students Union, and Business Solutions/Growth Hub. During the 2018/19 academic year, the internal partnership has been successfully extended and meshed into the work of the University’s procurement team. All University suppliers have to commit to support students as part of their contract. However, it is often difficult for them to engage with areas such as internships or recruitment, due to their size, or the nature of their business. Challenge Academy provides an alternative lighter touch engagement opportunity to develop relationships with suppliers. Indeed, next year some suppliers will also be providing seminars through the CAST programme. Challenge Academy representatives attend procurement team meetings and link into their operational database in order to identify potential challenges and report on work in progress. A representative from the procurement team also attends faculty POD meetings, where Challenge Academy reports. How Challenge Academy works: The model has not changed in essence, in that to access support through Challenge Academy, businesses write a challenge brief with clear expectations regarding required outcomes and deadlines. The University appoints an academic mentor to work with the client and facilitate this process.
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The service is currently free but some projects may incur expenses (e.g, materials for artwork, stationery, necessary travel, telephone use for market research), and where this is the case, the client is encouraged to identify a budget to fund essential costs. We encourage businesses to consider incentives or prize sponsorship to maximise their engagement or improve take-up of projects. Before publicising any challenge to students, the Challenge Academy team reviews the challenge brief and confirms that it is suitable for students. We ensure that each challenge matches student skills and experience with the workplace issue and that students learn and use a range of transferable skills and competencies, which contribute towards their employability. The majority of challenges are now assigned to modules as case studies or more usually, live assignments. Feedback from this form of delivery has been very positive. Furthermore, materials developed have informed the curriculum and have enabled applied, contemporary lecture materials to be created. It also allows us to ‘manage’ the final submissions provided to businesses in order to showcase high-quality output. This year, some challenges were aligned to student research (final year undergraduate or postgraduate dissertations). From a qualitative perspective, the output has been very strong and has enabled a rich repository of research material to be collected. The intention is to produce journal papers next year from this output. Clients have been delighted with the level of student research and advice provided. One KEEN client (Fixed Wheel Brewery) has actually created two new theme bars based on the research and recommendations from student dissertations. The third mode of engagement stems from students volunteering their individual time and support on challenge projects. Although this is not our preferred route, we can report several successes this year. E.g. Two business students are currently supporting the Stafford Campus to identify purchasing preferences amongst business clients. This market research involved them conducting a survey at the recent Staffordshire County Show, where Wolverhampton had a stand. We also provided a drop-in business advice morning at Stafford Campus, which was fully populated by local businesses. Cross-faculty working: Challenges were initially provided by FoSS (Business School), but from 2017 onwards challenges have been offered by Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Science and Engineering, and Faculty of Education, Health and Wellbeing. The team
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We have a healthy portfolio of challenges to 2019/2020 semester 1&2 modules and arte working to process 22 new enquiries.
continue to support and encourage cross-faculty challenges and it is pleasing to report increased engagement this year, despite a significant reduction in funding. An expanded portfolio of clients has been developed for 2019/20 and it is hoped to develop stronger inter-faculty collaboration on actual challenges. A number of opportunities will be created as a result of the merger of Faculty of Arts and FoSS. We have already received numerous requests from businesses for support in the area of design, branding, and marketing. We look forward to working to design a support structure which accommodates the broader church of academic skills that the new faculty will offer. Challenge Academy Seminar and Training (CAST) programme: Support to students has been strengthened through the CAST programme, which offers seminars and training events that are of interest to both university students, professional bodies, and businesses. Recent topics have included digital marketing, video CV building; personal profile building & sales impact; and use of Linked-In for achieving graduate-level jobs. Each event is delivered by an external subject specialist/practitioner and encourages networking opportunities. Wherever possible, a mixed audience from each of the stakeholder groups (organisations, students, enabling bodies, and academics) are encouraged. Feedback on events operated this year has been very positive. Five practitioner seminars were held during 2018/19. Planning for next academic year is already in place and six cutting edge speakers have been scheduled for delivery in 2019/20. Next year we plan to align each CAST delivery into a module lecture slot in order to maximise attendance. It will also be publicised externally to ensure effective networking opportunities, and showcase the university’s provision to external stakeholders. 2018/19 Engagement: It is pleasing to report that the number of students, staff, and businesses engaging with Challenge Academy has continued to grow over the past three years. This academic year 870 students across the university have engaged with Challenge Academy and linked to 47 Organisations. An increasing number of academics and modules have aligned to Challenge Academy this year and around 120 students participated in CAST applied seminars. FoSS (353 students participating), and FSE (326 students participating) are most prolifically engaged with Challenge Academy. FEHW were less engaged (partly due to the nature of their work which is already more applied). However, through developments with NHS New Cross, we hope to generate more opportunities for FEHW next year.
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The range of Organisations participating in Challenge Academy covers a broad spectrum and has included public services, SME’s, charities/third sector, and some large businesses (including Wolverhampton Wanderers FC). 2019/20 Developments: We already have a healthy portfolio of challenges aligned to 2019/20 semester 1&2 modules (including NHS New Cross Hospital) and are working to process 22 new enquiries. DIT and Black Country Chamber of Commerce have committed to actively promote and support Challenge Academy next year. We are also planning a greater alignment with our Stafford Campus and have scheduled drop-in business support events there next semester. The MSc Marketing Management Award will be fully aligned to Challenge Academy next year and will be delivered in a consultancy style (making a positive contribution to the employability aims outlined in the university’s strategic plan). The aim in 2019/20 is also to strengthen research opportunities and to promote live-dissertation topics at student induction events. Challenge Academy is aligned with Link You, an international funded support programme. We are currently developing collaborative challenges which will see our students working with their counterparts in Peru, Argentina, Columbia, Spain and Portugal in 2019/20. This work will include live link-ups and export initiatives. DIT are very interesting in this aspect of our delivery and are keen to identify alignment opportunities presented as a result of Brexit developments. In summary, it is pleasing to report a positive canvas of engagement and performance with Challenge Academy. The team has worked to strengthen data capture opportunities in order to contribute to future UK government auditing (TEF and KEF returns). In addition to statistical information student feedback and testimonies have been captured, which will provide evidence to support claims made on our future audit returns. Some of these testimonies have been most encouraging and there is evidence that Challenge Academy interventions have made a real impact in helping students to secure graduate-level jobs and informing their career choices. A promotional video is currently being designed, which will showcase some of these achievements, and it is firmly believed that this success can be built on in future years. Dr Robert J Harris. 1st November 2019
Contact Marina Ventura, Coordinator. Career Services and Alumni office. Instituto Universitario de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL) T: +351 21 790 3000 marina.ventura@iscte.pt Av. das Forรงas Armadas, 1649-026 Lisboa, Portugal.
https://linkyou.fahsbender.pe Watch the video: https://youtu.be/vkcd5-o0Jas
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This document reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
Funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union