̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Alan Hughes

Greater business-university collaboration will reap rewards, says new report

skbf2 — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 16:09:34 +0000

Valuable interactions between businesses and universities in the UK take many forms, but a lack of capacity by firms and information from universities is holding back even greater collaboration, says a new report.

̽��ֱ��report by the National Centre for Universities and Business (NCUB) and the Centre for Business Research (CBR) at Cambridge Judge Business School found that people-based interactions are the most common form of business-university interaction at 45%, followed by problem-solving interactions at 30%, commercialisation at 24%, and community-based interaction at 23%. Even within the commercialisation category, use of academic publications was most common at 19%, while spinouts and licensing were only 9% and 2%, respectively.

Report based on survey of nearly 4,000 companies

̽��ֱ��report based on an online survey of 3,823 companies in 2020-21 found that there is much untapped potential for the university sector to work further with business. Collaboration is curtailed by companies' lack of capacity to tap this important resource and by a lack of information from universities on how they can help businesses.

"A key finding of the report is that interactions take multiple forms that are far more frequent than spinoff and licensing transactions, and the vast majority of businesses interacting in these multiple forms find benefits that meet or exceed their expectations," said report co-author Alan Hughes of Imperial College Business School and the Centre for Business Research (CBR) at Cambridge Judge.

"But the survey results also make clear that it's lack of capacity on the part of companies, and a shortage of information provided by universities – rather than the costs of interaction – that is holding back greater collaboration with the UK's university sector, and this is costing the economy in terms of innovation and competitiveness. This issue could be addressed by businesses devoting more attention and staff to building their capacity for interactions with the university sector. This would be time and money well spent in terms of potential rewards and impact on company performance.

"Universities could also devote more attention to informing companies about the support that can be provided, and business schools have an important role to play in this."

Firms lack ability to seek knowledge from universities

Among the more detailed findings, the survey showed that companies of all types and sizes are "lacking in the ability to search for external knowledge from universities and invested only modest effort and time in integrating this knowledge into their companies". More than half of companies with at least one interaction with universities said that lack of resources was the biggest constraint on further interaction, followed by difficulty in identifying a university partner to help their businesses.

̽��ֱ��impact of COVID-19 has caused major disruptions to university-business links, with more than a third of firms reporting that it had impacted their interactions with universities. If the destructive impact of the pandemic on collaborations persists it will harm future economic growth and business performance.

̽��ֱ��115-page report – ̽��ֱ��Changing State of Business- ̽��ֱ�� Interactions in the UK 2005 to 2021 – is co-authored by Alan Hughes of Imperial College Business School and the CBR at Cambridge Judge; Michael Kitson, Assistant Director of the CBR; Ammon Salter of the ̽��ֱ�� of Bath; David Angenendt of Technical ̽��ֱ�� of Munich and the CBR; and Robert Hughes of the CBR.

Other findings of the report include:

UK businesses interact with universities on a global scale, not only locally or regionally. 'Knowledge exchange interactions operate over multiple regional, national and international geographies.'
Individual academics and individual professional staff at universities play a big role in starting and sustaining collaboration with businesses. 'Personal contacts are important mechanisms for university-company interactions.'
̽��ֱ��diversity of university types in the UK higher education sector is a 'strength of the system', because companies interact with large research-focused universities as well as smaller and more specialised institutions.
Companies that interact with universities rely on a diverse spectrum of academic disciplines.

Universities can help in full range of business functions

"Companies seek university interactions to solve the full range of business functions," says Alan Hughes. "These wider functions span strategy and business organisation, finance, logistics, human relations and marketing. As a result, interactions spread far beyond the STEM (science, tech, engineering and maths) disciplines to encompass, in particular, business and management studies and the social sciences, as well as arts and humanities. Non-STEM disciplines are particularly significant in knowledge-intensive services and other service industries, which are the dominant sectors in UK economic activity."

More than 80% of all companies surveyed said their university interactions met or exceeded their expectations, yet this was greater in more business-related areas of interaction such as human resource management, financial planning and business strategy. Interactions that did not meet expectations were concentrated in tech and process development, as well as logistics and procurement.

"This finding is a reminder that the UK higher education sector, including business schools, play a role far broader than only in the well-publicised technology sector," said co-author Michael Kitson, Associate Professor in International Macroeconomics and Director of the MBA Programme at Cambridge Judge.

"Developing new technologies are, of course important, but the survey shows that a focus only on technology risks businesses and universities alike missing out on organisational and other business-related activities that benefit companies across the UK."

Originally published on the Cambridge Judge Business School website.

Interactions between UK businesses and universities are broad-based and beneficial, but are being held back by firms' lack of capacity and information to tap this key resource, says a new report co-authored at Cambridge Judge Business School.

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Exploding the ivory tower myth

lw355 — Tue, 17 May 2011 12:24:17 +0000

When people think about how academia links with external organisations they often think in terms of commercialisation of research. But the results of a large-scale survey of academics across all disciplines in every UK university, and a parallel survey of all sectors of UK business, tell a very different story.

̽��ֱ��surveys were carried out by the Centre for Business Research (CBR) at Cambridge Judge Business School as part of a research initiative funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the respective higher education funding councils of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

̽��ֱ��results were finalised last year and have now been interrogated in greater detail, and supported by a set of detailed case studies, for the arts and humanities – a group of disciplines conventionally given little emphasis in relation to discussions of the socio-economic impact of university activity.

A recently published report of this latest research, which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, explodes some of the myths surrounding the alleged ivory tower isolation of university academics to reveal the wide, but often hidden, impact of universities outside of academia. They also show the way in which universities can act as a ‘public space’ within which a variety of initially informal interactions can develop into a broad spectrum of fruitful interactions with the public, private and third sectors.

UK-wide survey of all academics

Over 22,000 academics responded to the survey – the largest survey in the world to date to cover academic involvement with external organisations – as well as over 2,500 businesses of all sectors and sizes. ̽��ֱ��results permit a detailed mapping of the patterns of interactions of academics with external organisations in the public, private and community sectors, together with an in-depth examination of private sector business views of their relationships with academics.

For the UK academic community as a whole, the survey results make it very plain that commercialisation activities in the sense of licensing, patenting or spin-out companies are a very small part of the overall knowledge exchange spectrum.

Compared with 5% and 7% of UK academics, respectively, who report having licensed research or are carrying out patenting activity, over 30% report being involved in standard-setting forums with external organisations or are directly employed in employee training and student placement with external organisations. Nearly 90% attend events such as conferences involving external organisations. These people-related activities dwarf knowledge exchange through direct commercialisation.

In addition, problem-solving activities, such as involvement in research consortia, prototyping, testing and, in particular, the provision of informal advice, are between five and 10 times more important than direct commercialisation. Finally, around a third of academics are involved in lectures for the community, school projects and the provision of a wide variety of public exhibitions and arts activities for the community.

̽��ֱ��academic survey also revealed that the external organisations involved in these academic interactions extended beyond the private sector to include a rich set of interactions with the public sector, and with a wide range of charitable community and local and regional organisations.

In terms of the constraints on knowledge exchange between the private sector and academia, the conventional wisdom that constraints are caused by cultural differences, conflict over intellectual property and differences in time periods over which research should be carried out is not supported by evidence. Instead, the principal constraint reported by businesses was their own internal capacity to manage academic relationships effectively. From the academics’ point of view, it is the pressure of time and the need to manage pressures to combine external relationships (which were frequently seen to be positively related to research and teaching activities) with the demands of career prospects (which are dominated by academic publication).

Arts and humanities

̽��ֱ��overall survey includes 3,650 responses from academics in fields within the scope of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, including English, linguistics and modern languages, classics, history, philosophy, architecture, cultural studies, and the creative arts and media.

An analysis of patenting and licensing reveals that this is, with the exception of the creative arts and media, a relatively low level of activity for these academics. However, once we move beyond this narrow perspective to include knowledge exchange that spans people-based, problem-solving and community-orientated activities, the arts and humanities display as rich and diverse a set of connections as other disciplines, and a particularly wide-range of third sector and community interactions.

Academics from the arts and humanities therefore emerge as highly connected with the UK economy and society. Moreover, these interactions are regarded by the academics involved as strongly supportive of scholarship and represent a two-way complementary interaction with external organisations.

̽��ֱ��notion therefore that knowledge exchange is an activity driven solely by commercial and pecuniary interests is mis-founded – for most academics in the arts and humanities, the main impact of connecting with others is complementary to their research and their teaching.

Even within a narrow commercialisation perspective, a disaggregation of the arts and humanities to distinguish the creative arts and media from other humanities reveals that the former displays connection characteristics as deep as other disciplines and with considerable private sector and commercial interactions.

̽��ֱ��business survey responses also reveal a pattern of interactions with academics that spans all disciplines and stretches beyond patenting and licensing. Businesses frequently use multiple disciplinary sources including the arts and humanities to address a wide range of activities spanning marketing and organisational change and which go beyond a focus on technology development.

̽��ֱ�� as a public space

Many academics from the arts and humanities (and those from other disciplines) do not connect with external organisations because it is not considered necessary for their research or teaching. Two striking findings of the research in this respect are, first, that the connections which are made are most frequently initiated by the external organisations that academics partner and, second, that they are not initially instigated via technology transfer offices.

For knowledge exchange to be effective and provide benefits to all partners, the development of mutual understanding and management of expectations are crucial. Where there are areas in which improved connectivity would support both academic pursuits and wider social and economic objectives, knowledge exchange can therefore be best improved by mechanisms that can support informal interaction, the discovery of mutual interests and the subsequent development and management of relationships.

Maintaining a strong pattern of knowledge exchange activities is closely connected to what may be termed the ‘public space’ role of universities: a forum in which a wide variety of individuals and organisations can interact and develop relationships. Some of these relationships may lead to a commercial and contractual stage, but their development depends on the ability to connect in a way that is, at least initially, not driven by strictly instrumental and commercial needs. Universities provide an environment to nurture interactions and potential links from which a wide variety of other connections, including strictly commercial ones, may develop.

For more information, please contact Professor Alan Hughes (a.hughes@cbr.cam.ac.uk), Director of the Centre for Business Research at the Cambridge Judge Business School and member of the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology. Hidden Connections: Knowledge exchange between the arts and humanities and the private, public and third sectors by Alan Hughes, Michael Kitson, Jocelyn Probert, Anna Bullock and Isobel Milner was published by the AHRC and CBR in May 2011.

Academia makes a considerable and valued contribution to society that goes far beyond commercialisation of applied research, as Professor Alan Hughes, co-author of the first in-depth study of all UK university–business interactions, explains.

̽��ֱ��notion that knowledge exchange is an activity driven solely by commercial and pecuniary interests is mis-founded.

Professor Alan Hughes

Ivory tower

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