W O R K I N G TOG E T H E R F O R GROWTH AND PROSPERITY
NCUB.CO.UK
“We are in the middle of a journey today and the key words between business and education must be mutuality and partnerships... I can’t endorse more, and WPP as an organisation can’t endorse more, the role and purpose of NCUB in this country.” Sir Martin Sorrell
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THE NATIONAL CENTRE FOR UNIVERSITIES AND BUSINESS Inspiring university and business partnerships for sustainable growth and prosperity. Created in 2013 by the Council of Industry and Higher Education, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and the UK’s funding and research councils, the National Centre is supported by membership contributions and public funds. The Council, drawn from senior business leaders and Vice-Chancellors from our member organisations:
The National Centre delivers:
R E V I E W and make recommendations on the UK’s long-term skills, graduate talent and innovation needs.
D I G I TA L P L AT F O R M S for innovation brokerage and work experience.
D E L I V E R collaborative thinking on
feeding into every major review of business-university collaboration.
the big issues of sustainable growth and industrial strategy.
S T R E N G T H E N understanding with government and policy-makers through high level networking.
RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
CHANGE PROGRAMMES mapping out clear and practical solutions for both sectors and regional economies.
All our work has a proven track record of creating real impact through legacy projects and influencing policy.
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INTRODUCTION Our members are committed to increasing the quality, range and diversity of partnerships to grow a strong and sustainable economy and a good society.
World class research base
Develop high quality graduates
Programmes aligned with UK’s top priorities
Fair economic growth agenda
Our members believe it vital to our national interest that we attract, develop and retain high quality graduates in the UK, that our research base remains world class, and that our programmes and policy thinking are aligned with the country’s top priorities. We continue to develop our agenda around sustainable development goals and fair economic growth and I wish
to thank our membership, board and executive for their hard and effective work through 2016/17.
Sam Laidlaw, Chairman
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REVIEW We are grateful to everyone who has been involved in our work this year, including hosting events, participating in Task Forces, contributing ideas and insight.
Leadership
Digital platforms
Research and analysis
Change programmes
We welcomed new members: Arqiva, Balfour Beatty, Bournemouth University, Diageo, DONG Energy, Durham University, EDF Energy, Falmouth University, Glasgow Caledonian University, Heriot-Watt University, Johnson Matthey, Kingston University, Linklaters, Thales UK, UBS, University of Bath, University of Huddersfield and the University of St Andrews.
Council for England and Research Councils UK for their continued investment into the Centre, and konfer, our innovation brokerage platform, and our partners Jisc and Unite Students for co-funding our work experience platform.
I would also like to thank the Higher Education Funding
Dr David Docherty, Chief Executive
“The UK needs more than ever to have vigorous, vibrant and productive partnerships that develop graduates and create innovative products and systems.� Sam Laidlaw, NCUB Chairman
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2016/17 HIGHLIGHTS Celebrating university and business partnerships
18 NEW MEMBERS IN 2016 / 17
£2M
KONFER.ONLINE COMPLETED TECHNICAL AND USER TESTING WITH 2M DATA POINTS
13 PUBLISHED REPORTS ON COLLABORATION, TALENT DEVELOPMENT AND INNOVATION ACROSS THE UK
1M PAGE VIEWS ON NCUB.CO.UK
TESTED WORK EXPERIENCE PLATFORM LIVE WITH FIVE UNIVERSITIES
20 EVENTS IN 2016 / 17
RAISED FOR WORK EXPERIENCE AND INNOVATION PLATFORMS
LAUNCHED SMART SPECIALISATION HUB.ORG
SPONSOR OF ‘THE MOST INNOVATIVE CONTRIBUTION TO BUSINESS UNIVERSITY COLLABORATION’
State of the Relationship Launch
Gavin Patterson
Lord Willetts
Sherry Coutu
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EVENTS 2016/17 Enabling collaboration, networking, sharing expertise and perspectives
BOARDROOM SERIES
NETWORKING AND LAUNCHES
Mr John Stewart, Legal & General, L&G Increasing private investment into universities and publicly funded innovation
Chairman’s Reception, House of Commons Hosted by Lord Willetts
Andrew Duff, Chairman, Severn Trent Aligning Innovation Outcomes in the Midlands Dynamo
Summer Keynote and Reception Keynote by Sherry Coutu CBE, author of the Scale-Up report on UK Economic Growth
Nive Krishnamurthy, CEO Infrastructure Services, CapGemini Applied innovation: business and universities working together
Autumn Keynote and Reception Gavin Patterson, CEO, BT Group, Innovation & Globalisation
John Fallon, Chief Executive, Pearson Pathways and New Ways: Fresh thinking on graduate accreditation and employability
State of the Relationship Report 2016 Launch and Reception
National Centre and BIS Consultation for the National Innovation Plan National Centre and Employers Degree Apprenticeships Chairman’s Council Collaboration, Industrial Strategy, Brexit and Devolution
Rosa Fernandez, Director of Research, NCUB Ric Parker, Director of Research and Technology, Rolls Royce Sir Michael Arthur, President, Boeing Europe and MD, Boeing UK & Ireland David Sweeney, Director (Research and Knowledge Exchange), HEFCE Growing Value Scotland Task Force Final Conclusions and Recommendations Keynote by John Swinney, Deputy First Minister
“konfer is a straightforward way for businesses to identify potential academic collaborators. We recommend that the Government works with the National Centre for Universities and Business to publicise the konfer platform.� House of Commons Science and Technology Committee
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DIGITAL PLATFORMS Platforms for innovation, graduate talent development and networking across the UK
I N N O VAT I O N
NETWORKING
Helping business connect to universities. konfer.online completed technical and user testing, and will launch in beta at the end of 2017. It was supported in the Dowling Review on research collaborations, Mayfield Review of Productivity and the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee and shortlisted for the Computing UKIT Awards. We are indebted to our partners at HEFCE and the Research Councils.
Solving problems through social networking. To overcome some of the barriers for university business interaction we are ensuring the same tools are available as used in everyday life. The workwith, a closed social network, will be open to anyone working in our member organisations and will launch during 2017.
TA L E N T D E V E L O P M E N T Increasing the pool of work experiences. Research shows the vital importance of work experience to student employability. To create a national pool of work experiences, particularly for disadvantaged students, we developed a work experience service. After successful trials with live data with five university careers services we are partnering with Unite Students and Jisc to scaleup thousands of new work experience offers with a Beta launch in 2017.
“The world is changing. Some of the jobs we do today will disappear, but new roles will emerge. The World Economic Forum identified the top three skills needed for this future world of work as complex problem solving, critical thinking and creativity. The importance of NCUB therefore as the independent organisation that promotes, develops and supports collaboration between business, universities and government cannot be overstated.� Sarah Weir, Chief Executive, Design Council
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CELEBRATING COLLABORATION Inspiring university business partnerships Inspiration and detailed evidence on how universities and business work together across the UK is demonstrated on ncub.co.uk, through reports, blogs and success stories. We celebrate and promote success stories with company leaders, academics, Government, policy makers, students and the public using our website, media, newsletters and social media.
SOCIAL MEDIA Twitter
IN THE NEWS BBC
Financial Times
The Economist
I news
The Engineer
New Statesman
Computer Business Review
STV News
The Courier
Times Higher Education
Herald Scotland
Daily Business Group
Informed Scotland
Interface
Dairy Crest, in collaboration with Harper Adams University, won the Times Higher Education award for ‘the most innovative contribution to business university collaboration’, sponsored by the National Centre. Embedding research scientists in one of the country’s top agricultural colleges was a pioneering collaboration in an industry with traditional low R&D, as noted by our Food Economy Task Force.
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RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS Central to the National Centre’s work is building the evidence base for university-business collaboration. Members and funders contribute to our research to influence policy and practice for the better, while monitoring progress in collaboration between universities and business throughout the UK. The National Centre is co-delivering the Smart Specialisation Hub. Funded by UK Government, HEFCE, Innovate UK and European Regional Development Funds, the Hub promotes innovation throughout England and supports places and people to devise evidence-based strategies and projects for targeted investment. We also bring in Universities’ expertise in world-class research, so vital to local and regional economies.
P U B L I C AT I O N S 2 0 1 6 - 1 7 Representing members’ interests to government and policy makers.
Degree Apprenticeships Briefing
State of the Relationship 2016
What they are, how they are organised, why they were developed and which sectors they are prominent.
Our flagship publication includes brilliant case studies of quality partnerships and thoughtprovoking analysis from worldleading thinkers.
Growing Value Scotland Final Final report from the Growing Value Scotland Task Force.
Work experience as a gateway to talent in the UK Assessing business views.
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Copies of all our reports can be found on our website: www.ncub.co.uk/reports
Fuelling the Knowledge Economy I
Talent 2030 Dashboard Report 2016
Knowledge Exchange and Research Council Institutes
Smart Specialisation Hub, Annual Report 2016
Analysis exploring academics’ external engagement in the UK.
Tracking the percentage of women moving through engineering education.
Analysis of the external engagement activities of research staff at UK Research Council institutes.
Inaugural report on innovative, place-based activity across England.
Collaboration Progress Monitor Bringing together key performance measures to test the health of the interactions between business, government agencies and universities.
Collaboration Progress Monitor UK
Collaboration Progress Monitor Scotland
Collaboration Progress Monitor Wales
Collaboration Progress Monitor Northern Ireland
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CHANGE PROGRAMMES Through Task Forces National Centre members and funders develop recommendations for industry, HE and the government and develop change management programmes. Our reports and recommendations for further action and policy changes have a proven track record of impact. G R O W I N G VA L U E S C O T L A N D
D I G I TA L H E A L T H C A R E & H E A L T H Y L I V I N G
Growing Potential, the Growing Value Scotland legacy programme, is co-chaired by David Brown, (Partner, PwC) and Prof Sir Pete Downes (Principal and Vice-Chancellor, University of Dundee) and will be a major source of policy and advocacy to help grow innovation in Scotland.
The UK must create the right conditions to ensure its health and digital businesses are at the forefront of this fast-growing sector. The Task Force is reviewing evidence and will make recommendations on innovation and graduate skills necessary to strengthen the UK’s position.
G R O W I N G VA L U E WA L E S
TA L E N T 2 0 3 0
Focussed on practical ways of harnessing the talent being developed in Welsh universities and strength in ground-breaking research and development for the benefit of the Welsh economy, the Task Force is cochaired by Prof Colin Riordan (Vice-Chancellor, Cardiff University) and Dr Drew Nelson (CEO, IQE).
There is a real lack of progress in the numbers of women undertaking physics and computing qualifications, and the pipeline for women entering engineering and manufacturing. Yet our National Engineering Competition for Girls shows an increasing appetite. Thanks to our sponsors, Rolls-Royce and PepsiCo in partnership with Centrica.
C R E AT I V E F U S E N O R T H E A S T With the AHRC and five universities in the North East, we developed the Creative Fuse North East, a legacy from our Creative, Digital and IT Task Force and its report The Fuse.
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NCUB MEMBERS AND SUPPORTERS
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National Centre for Universities and Business
Studio 10, Tiger House, Burton Street, London, WC1H 9BY info@ncub.co.uk
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