̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - knowledge exchange

Cambridge recognised for its leadership in knowledge exchange

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 11:05:29 +0000

Cambridge secured the highest performance scores in many areas of knowledge exchange, with very high engagement for intellectual property (IP) commercialisation, research partnerships, working with business, and working with the public and third sectors.

̽��ֱ��KEF provides a range of information about the knowledge exchange activities of English higher education institutions – in other words, how each institution works with external partners, from businesses to community groups, for the benefit of the economy and society.

When compared with its peer group in cluster ‘V’ (very large, research-intensive universities), Cambridge shows:

very high engagement for research partnerships, as measured by co-authorship with non-academic partners and contributions to collaborative research
very high engagement for IP and commercialisation, and working with business
very high engagement for working with the public and third sector, as measured by income from contract research, consultancy and the provision of facilities and equipment services to these partners
high engagement for public and community engagement in line with the cluster average.

Professor Andy Neely, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise and Business Relations at Cambridge, said: “ ̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge has a fantastically rich knowledge exchange ecosystem. Here, unique and constantly-evolving support systems, physical spaces and development opportunities exist to enable the pursuit, dissemination and application of world-leading research and knowledge for the benefit of society.

“This ecosystem, together with productive relationships with our industry partners, many of them stretching back over decades with a shared history of innovation, and the many opportunities for public engagement, helps ensure that Cambridge is a vibrant and welcoming place for knowledge exchange.”

Dr Karen Kennedy, Director of the Strategic Partnerships Office, added: “By working in partnership with businesses and other organisations, we are able to turn our research into new technologies, therapeutics and applications that will make a positive difference to people’s lives, both in the UK and around the world. ̽��ֱ��KEF has an important role to play in highlighting the value of such collaborations and we are delighted that Cambridge has been recognised for its strength in this regard.”

Partnerships

Combining expertise at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge with the insights, resources and capabilities of commercial partners enhances the ability to change lives through, for example, pioneering new cures for disease, making breakthroughs in energy transition and shaping a more sustainable, more equitable future.

This has led, for instance, to the launch of the Cambridge Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine in partnership with AstraZeneca and GSK, the creation of a recruitment programme for neurodiverse individuals in partnership with Aviva, and a partnership with KPMG to look at the future of work, starting with mental wellbeing.

With support from Cambridge Zero, which aims to maximise the ̽��ֱ��’s contribution towards achieving a resilient and sustainable zero-carbon world, work has been ongoing to establish broad academic–industry networks to promote wider collaborations in key decarbonisation challenge areas. In addition, a partnership with South Korean investment group WP Investment Company (WPIC) is seeking to progress research in sustainable energy systems, particularly the production of lithium and its use in batteries for electric vehicles.

Commercialisation

Cambridge scored highly for its IP commercialisation, in part because of work done by Cambridge Enterprise, the ̽��ֱ��’s commercialisation arm. Cambridge Enterprise works with academics to protect, develop and move innovations based on ̽��ֱ�� research toward the market. Early stage innovations are licensed to existing companies for development or spun out as new companies. ̽��ֱ��goal is getting early stage ideas out of labs and into use, for the benefit of society and the economy.

Dr Diarmuid O'Brien, Chief Executive of Cambridge Enterprise, said: “ ̽��ֱ�� research and innovation have a vital role to play in confronting huge global challenges such as climate change. That is our mission, to help the ̽��ֱ��’s researchers bring positive change to the world through their research.”

In the financial year 2020-2021, Cambridge Enterprise approved £5.7m of investments in 21 companies, 7 of which were at seed stage. Among these were three companies developing new technologies focused on reducing carbon emissions – Nyobolt, Echion Technologies and Carbon Re. These three companies collectively raised over £20 million of investment and are helping to move the world to a more sustainable future.

Cambridge Enterprise is part of an extensive support infrastructure that helps postdocs, academics and staff plan, launch and fund successful ventures. Cambridge Enterprise and the Entrepreneurial Postdocs of Cambridge, for instance, together run an annual Postdoc Business Plan Competition designed to help accelerate the creation of businesses based on Cambridge research.

Now in its eighth year, the competition has led 73 teams through a programme of training, mentoring and business plan iteration. These 73 teams have gone on to raise over £69 million in investment. Among the winners of the competition is Dr Giorgia Longobardi (pictured), whose spin-out Cambridge GaN Devices has developed a range of power devices using the energy-efficient semiconductor gallium nitride, heralding a new era of greener electronics. ̽��ֱ��£20,000 first prize in 2016 was invested in, and helped accelerate, the company.

Public engagement

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ��’s public engagement activities were also rated highly. Public engagement fulfils the ̽��ֱ��’s mission by creating bridges between researchers and the public, locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. Partnerships with civic organisations, charities, and arts and community groups help build and maintain relationships with our local communities.

Dr Lucinda Spokes, Head of Public Engagement, said: “Training and advice underpins everything we do. This provides researchers with the skills and confidence to work collaboratively with their communities and stakeholders sharing expertise to co-produce knowledge, improve research outcomes and deliver wider societal benefit.”

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Museums and Botanic Garden (UCM), along with the flagship Cambridge Festival, open up the ̽��ֱ��'s research and Collections to all, with over one million people visiting exhibitions, talks and activities each year. UCM enables significant contributions to connecting with some of the most vulnerable communities, reducing loneliness, enhancing health and wellbeing, and supporting the development of children and young people.

Digital public engagement, driven by necessity at the start of the pandemic, provided the ̽��ֱ�� with new ways to engage with people both locally and globally. Since 2021, digital engagement as part of the Cambridge Festival has resulted in over 150K views of research-led content by audiences in over 170 countries.

KEF

̽��ֱ��KEF has been developed by Research England, a public body who fund Higher Education Institutions to undertake research and knowledge exchange.

David Sweeney CBE, Executive Chair of Research England, said: “Knowledge exchange is integral to the mission and purpose of our universities, and its importance in contributing to societal and economic prosperity is strongly supported by the Government.

“Today’s new version of the Knowledge Exchange Framework takes further forward the vision and potential of KE activity, providing richer evidence to demonstrate universities’ strengths in different areas when set alongside their peers.”

Cambridge’s leadership in knowledge exchange has been recognised in the Knowledge Exchange Framework 2 (KEF2) results, published by Research England on 27 September 2022.

“ ̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge has a fantastically rich knowledge exchange ecosystem. Here, unique and constantly-evolving support systems, physical spaces and development opportunities exist to enable the pursuit, dissemination and application of world-leading research and knowledge for the benefit of society"

Andy Neely

StillVision

Dr Giorgia Longobardi, winner of a Cambridge Enterprise Postdoc Business Plan Competition

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Making things happen: the importance of knowledge exchange

skbf2 — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 16:00:33 +0000

Knowledge exchange has been a personal passion for me, ever since my first job as a Teaching Company Associate (Now Knowledge Transfer Partnerships), managing a knowledge exchange project with Cardiff ̽��ֱ�� and a tech start-up company. That experience sparked my fascination with the impact of university research on the wider world. Since then I’ve been fortunate to pursue this interest, working with universities and businesses across the UK in a range of different roles. I was delighted to get the opportunity to come to Cambridge where there are so many exciting opportunities for knowledge exchange.

̽��ֱ��rewards of the job

It is hugely satisfying when you are able to identify and nurture synergies between businesses and universities to achieve things neither could do on their own. For example, one of my tasks is to manage the EPSRC IAA Follow-on Fund at Cambridge. I am often told by academics how critical a relatively small injection of cash at the right time can be in helping them move an idea on to the point where it can attract more significant investment or industry support.

Fluidic Analytics, a spin-out from the Department of Chemistry, is a fantastic example of this. During the course of his research, Professor Tuomas Knowles invented a new method for studying proteins and their behaviours which he turned into a lab-scale prototype. It was thanks to the IAA Follow-on Fund that he was able to keep the project going until he could secure the investment needed to commercialise it. ̽��ֱ��company now employs more than 60 people and has raised more than $40 million in funding.

̽��ֱ��IAA has also played a pivotal role in collaborations with two of the ̽��ֱ��’s business partners, Rolls-Royce and Arm. An IAA Knowledge Transfer Fellowship enabled Bryce Conduit at Rolls-Royce and James Taylor in the Whittle Lab (pictured above) to use machine learning to predict how much damage an aeroengine’s compressor blades can sustain before they need to be repaired or replaced. To solve the problem, the pair developed a radical new approach to rapid prototyping that has the potential to revolutionise the way engineers design and optimise turbomachinery.

IAA Funding also enabled two postdocs to be seconded to Arm for a year to help it assess the feasibility of building a ‘proper’ industry-scale prototype of the ground-breaking digital security concepts being developed at the ̽��ֱ��’s Department of Computer Science and Technology. If adopted, this will affect virtually all of us, improving the security of the billions of phones, computers and myriad devices that rely in Arm technology.

Sometimes we talk about technology as if is a discrete entity that can be boxed up and exchanged for money. In practice, of course, it is not that simple. Technology is also about the know-how that resides in a researcher’s head. People are at the heart of knowledge exchange, whether it is someone from Rolls-Royce coming to work in the Whittle Lab or ̽��ֱ�� researchers going to work at Arm. In both cases, it gives them an opportunity to immerse themselves in a different world which can be hugely beneficial for the individuals concerned as well as paving the way for future collaborations.

Making connections

We are fortunate at Cambridge that we have a strong track record of both entrepreneurship and collaboration with industry and other external partners. Many academics have achieved amazing things through the commercialisation of their research – and are expert at doing so. But how do you make sure, in an organisation of our size, that everyone who wants to get involved in knowledge exchange knows how to? That’s where the ̽��ֱ��’s network of knowledge exchange professionals comes in. One of our roles is to unearth that tacit knowledge within the ̽��ֱ��, share it widely and develop best practice so that everyone can benefit. ̽��ֱ��other is about trying to connect, translate and mediate between the different worlds of academia and business and policy.

Laying the groundwork

An often overlooked aspect of knowledge exchange is the importance of timing. An external partner has to be at exactly the right point in their development lifecycle to need our input. That need has to align with an academic or research group having the interest and capacity to pursue the research problem. There is a certain amount of luck involved in getting the timing right but, to borrow a well-worn phrase, ‘the harder I work, the luckier I get’.

As knowledge exchange professionals, we spend a lot of time and effort doing the groundwork, forging connections and sharing information, often without a clear idea at the outset of what will bear fruit. You know something will happen, you just don't know what. Both sides - universities and businesses – have to be prepared to make this kind of investment of time and resources.

A lot of people are in academia because of their natural curiosity: they want to understand how things work and why they are the way they are. By connecting them with the outside world, I can give them access to interesting new problems and help them turn their ideas into realities that go on to make a difference to people’s lives. Making that happen is a genuinely rewarding task: I still can’t quite believe my luck that I ended up here.

Claire McGlynn, Head of Impact Acceleration, Research Strategy Office

November 2021

Read all our Business and Enterprise blog posts here

Bryce Conduit (left) and James Taylor in the ̽��ֱ��'s Whittle Laboratory

Conquering a continent: how the French language circulated in Britain and medieval Europe

sjr81 — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 11:36:40 +0000

An important manuscript of the Lancelot-Grail, it lay forgotten and unopened for five centuries until its rediscovery in North Yorkshire and its sale in 1944. Detailing the search for the Holy Grail, it goes on public display for the first time alongside the only existing fragment of an episode from the earliest-known version of the Tristan and Isolde legend. Also on display is an early example of the kind of guide familiar to thousands of today’s holiday-makers: a French phrasebook.

A free exhibition, ̽��ֱ��Moving Word: French Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge, looks at the enormous cultural and historic impact of the French language upon life in England, Europe, the Middle East and beyond at a time when French – like Latin before it and English today – was the global language of culture, commerce and politics.

̽��ֱ��exhibition, curated by Bill Burgwinkle and Nicola Morato, is part of a wider AHRC-funded research project looking at the question of how knowledge travelled in manuscript form through the continent and into the Eastern Mediterranean world, freely crossing linguistic and cultural boundaries at a time when France was a much smaller political entity than it is today.

Burgwinkle, Professor of Medieval French and Occitan Literature at Cambridge, said: “French may have been brought to England by the Normans in 1066 but it was already here well before then as a language of knowledge and commerce. It served as the mother tongue of every English king for almost 400 years, from William the Conqueror to Richard II, and it was still in use as a language of royalty, politics and literature until the Tudor period, when we see Henry VIII writing love letters in French to Anne Boleyn.

“Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� is home to one of the world’s finest collections of medieval manuscripts of this kind. This exhibition not only gives us a chance to display the Library’s treasures, but also reminds us how the French language has enriched our cultural past and left us with a legacy that continues to be felt in 21st century Britain.

“Medieval texts like the ones we have on display became the basis of European literature. ̽��ֱ��idea that post-classical Western literature really begins with the Renaissance is completely false. It begins right here, among the very manuscripts and fragments in this exhibition. People may not realise it, but many of the earliest and most beautiful versions of the legends of Arthur, Lancelot and the Round Table were written in French; ̽��ֱ��Moving Word is a celebration of a period sometimes unfairly written out of literary history.”

̽��ֱ��early phrasebook, a guide to French conversation for travellers, is the Manières de language (1396). Composed in Bury St Edmunds and one of four in existence, it provides a series of dialogues for those travelling in France that inform readers how to trade with merchants, haggle over prices, secure an inn for the night, stop a child crying, speak endearingly to your lover or insult them. It also has instructions for singing the ‘most gracious and amorous’ love song in the world.

Elsewhere, perhaps some of the most impressive exhibits on display are huge medieval manuscripts that acted as compendiums of knowledge. One such example is a multilingual encyclopaedia from the 1300s featuring more than fifty texts of historical, cosmographical, literary and devotional interest. A heavily decorated volume, it is unusual for its thickness, and deals with, among other subjects, the roundness of the Earth and the force of gravity – centuries before Newton defined its laws.

In contrast, the fragment of Thomas d’Angleterre’s Roman de Tristan (Tristan and Iseut) may appear small in comparison, but its size belies its importance to the Cambridge collections. Thomas’s Tristan romance is the oldest known surviving version of the tragic love story. His work formed the basis of Gottfried von Strassburg’s German Tristan romance of the 13th century, which in turn provided the chief source for Wagner’s famous opera Tristan und Isolde. ̽��ֱ��fragment on display, detailing King Marc’s discovery of his wife Iseut and nephew Tristan sleeping together in a wood, is the sole witness of this scene from Thomas’s text to survive into the present.

̽��ֱ��Moving Word: French Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge runs from January 22 to April 17, 2014, in the Milstein Exhibition Centre, Monday–Friday 09.00–18.00, Saturday 09.00–16.30 Sunday closed. Admission free. For further information, see https://exhibitions.lib.cam.ac.uk.

Inset images: Top, detail from a multilingual compendium of knowledge (UK, first half of 14th century). Bottom, detail from the breviary of Marie de Saint-Pol, Paris 1330-1340

A 13th-century manuscript of Arthurian legend once owned by the Knights Templar is one of the star attractions of a new exhibition opening today at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library.

̽��ֱ��idea that post-classical Western literature really begins with the Renaissance is completely false. It begins right here, among the very manuscripts and fragments in this exhibition.

Bill Burgwinkle

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library

Image from a 14th century manuscript of the Romance of the rose, one of the best-known texts of the Middle Ages

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Nanotechnology and your views

bjb42 — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 10:02:37 +0000

Dr Robert Doubleday, Head of Research at the Centre for Science and Policy at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, is helping to coordinate a European online debate about developments in nanotechnology. This process of public debate is designed to generate questions about nanotechnology and encourage academics to address some of these questions through research.

̽��ֱ��project invites comments from members of the public and representatives of civil society organisations about five areas that employ nanotechnology: food and packaging, renewable energy, cancer diagnosis and treatment, ambient intelligence and environmental analysis of nano particles.

There have been a number of public dialogues about nanotechnology in recent years, but what makes this online debate different is its ambition to lead directly to new research. It aims to address gaps in knowledge about the use of nanotechnologies in society.

“This dialogue is not about reaching any conclusions; it’s about generating questions, which highlight the areas that need to be looked at in more detail,” said Dr Doubleday. “What we hope will come out of it is a series of concrete research questions that we will actively follow up.”

̽��ֱ��nanotechnology Knowledge Debate is part of PERARES (Public Engagement with Research and Research Engagement with Society), a project funded by the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme. PERARES consists of a network of universities and research organisations across Europe committed to carrying out research in response to questions raised by civil society organisations and the wider public. ̽��ֱ��PERARES Knowledge Debate provides a means of discovering what potential consumers and citizens think about nanotechnology and addressing any issues that arise.

According to Dr Doubleday, most people have mixed reactions towards new technologies: “They are excited about the potential of new technologies - they can see the benefits - but they also feel deeply uneasy about the lack of collective capacity to manage our increasing dependency on complex technologies.”

PERARES provides a platform for debate, addressing this tension between hope for technological contributions to an improved quality of life on the one hand and unease about becoming more dependent on unmanageable technologies.

Dr Doubleday convened a round-table event which brought together nanotechnology researchers with social scientists, science policy advisors and civil society organisations. One area which emerged as posing new questions was the inclusion of engineered nanoparticles in food and its packaging.

Recently, the European Parliament and Commission agreed rules that will require food manufacturers to label all food containing engineered nano particles.

“When people read that there are nano ingredients in their food, what will they think? What will that information mean to them and how can they use it?” Dr Doubleday asks.

“These are important issues. How does labelling work with other forms of regulation? Does labelling enable wider public debate about the direction of innovation, or does it narrow this issue down to a question of consumer choice?”

Some people view nanotechnologies as a continuation and evolution of previous human efforts to improve food. Ricotta cheese, for example, has its specific texture because the fat particles are at the nano scale – a process that was used unintentionally years ago.

However, for many people the technology raises significant questions about who, if anyone, has an overview of the speed and direction of innovation.

“This is why projects which encourage public engagement with science are important – to try to provide neutral space for such discussion and to bridge the gap between researchers and the wider public,” Dr Doubleday said.

̽��ֱ��online debate provides the general public and potential consumers with the chance to comment on any aspect of the development and use of nanotechnology in food and to ask questions which could be the subject for future research by scientists and social scientists.

To read more about the questions which come up through inclusion of engineered nano particles in food and packaging, please visit https://livingknowledge.org/discussion/diskutiere/2011/food-nanotechnology-and-labelling/ or please use the Comment facility below.

What are the implications of nanotechnology for the general public? What use is it to them? What are the risks and benefits? These are the types of questions that an online Knowledge Debate hopes to provoke.

What we hope will come out of it is a series of concrete research questions that we will actively follow up.

Rob Doubleday

Howard Dickins

Yoghurt pot under the spotlight.

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Open and transparent

amb206 — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:12:56 +0000

Data“Open

̽��ֱ��Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF), a venture co-founded by a Cambridge economist and committed to the sharing of knowledge from “sonnets to statistics, genes to geodata”, is playing a pioneering role in the movement to make more information available to the public and thus empower people to become involved in decision making, whether on a local, national or international level.

Last month OKF was awarded $750,000 to develop its activities over the next three years. ̽��ֱ��award, which comes from the Omidyar Network, will help the organisation to expand its financial transparency project, sustain and build working groups on open data, and establish offshoots in a growing number of countries round the world.

OKF was set up in 2004 by Rufus Pollock, with the mission of creating a worldwide ecosystem of good quality, reliable, searchable data, giving people the tools to be able to interpret that data and increasing data-literacy. Its overall aim is to empower people, both the average citizen and policy makers worldwide, to make better decisions based on the information which is available to them.

A shining example of a new kind of hybrid not-for-profit enterprise, with both a virtual and online presence, the organisation has mushroomed into a multi-stranded enterprise – from writing the software behind national data catalogues such as the UK’s data.gov.uk to educating scientists about the importance of publishing their work in open-access journals, from increasing understanding of rights to re-use Public Domain Works to developing a set of key principles which guide decision-makers in government about how to run an open-data policy.

Its core activities are building tools and communities around an ecosystem of open-data and the guiding principle and core theme in all OKF projects is the Open Definition. According to the Open Definition: “A piece of content or data is open if anyone is free to use, reuse, and redistribute it — subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and share-alike.”

OKF’s next major event takes place at the end of this month. ̽��ֱ��Open Government Data Camp in Warsaw is expected to attract members of government and civil society from all over the world. Activities will include: building consensus around core open data principles and values; building community by expanding and strengthening the international open data community; sharing ideas on the future of open data and how we can do things better; and making things, from starting projects and making plans to writing code.

̽��ֱ��camp is the second of its kind and is expected to be the largest Open Data Event in the world to date with participants from over 40 different countries. This year, a special focus will be given to drafting a set of Open Government Data principles to guide decision-makers all over the globe on how to effectively implement an open-data policy. Participants will share their experiences of implementing an open-data policy in their own countries and benefit from workshops, sessions and discussions on best-practices for governments wishing to publish their data.

With its headquarters in Cambridge, OKF has a growing number of offshoots internationally. ‘Chapters’ are already established in Germany and Austria and talks are in progress about setting up chapters or partnerships in Finland, Brazil and Kenya. ̽��ֱ��flexible structure as a largely volunteer-based organisation means that people can opt in and out of its activities according to their time-constraints. Pollock remains at its helm as a director and the organisation maintains strong links with Cambridge. Pollock is affiliated to the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law and Peter Murray-Rust of the Department Chemistry is a key proponent of the Open-Science movement. Many key players in OKF’s Cultural Heritage projects such as have come from Cambridge’s arts and humanities faculties.

OKF works by developing standards, tools and projects, all of which are breaking new ground in the way in which they give people access to information and the opportunity to participate in building tools and forming policies. Indeed, members of the community are encouraged to set up and run their own projects and are often given infrastructure and support to do so by the Foundation.

Its tools include AnnotateIt which allows users to annotate any web page simply by incorporating two lines of JavaScript into their site or by running OKF’s bookmarklet. While some projects are targeted at the general public, and offer ways of accessing information on government spending, for example, others focus on learning. Open Shakespeare, for example is designed as a tool to allow users to explore and discover Shakespeare’s works through discovering other peoples’ perspective and commentary with tools such as AnnotateIt.

Embedded in OKF’s youthful and inclusive culture are the Principles ”, guidelines drawn up by various members, including Peter Murray-Rust in a local pub, the Panton Arms. These set out in robust terms OKF’s beliefs in the arena of open-science and include guidelines such as: “When publishing data make an explicit and robust statement of your wishes” [with regard to how you wish them to be used] and “If you want your data to be effectively used and added to by others it should be open as defined by the Open Knowledge – in particular non-commercial and other restrictive clauses should not be used.”

Pollock is currently Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow, and an Associate of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at Cambridge. He has worked extensively as a scholar and developer on the social, legal and technological issues related to the creation and sharing of knowledge. In a recent interview with the Guardian he described “vast silos of data that is not shared” and, while he acknowledged the role of technologies such as wikis, he emphasised that these were the exceptions not the rule and that a huge amount remained to be done in opening up of data. In science, for example, most research is still published in non-open journals and access is restricted to those who can afford to pay a premium for it; this is despite the fact that much of the research behind the data was publicly funded, so most readers will already have ‘paid’ for it once through their taxes.

̽��ֱ��work of OKF and others is vital in challenging our passive acceptance of the status quo, on one hand, and the obfuscation of institutions in their management of data sharing, on the other. As countries such as the UK and Germany take a lead in transparency, so others will be under pressure to follow suit. In this way OKF and similar organisations are making a valuable contribution to the sharing of data that empowers us to participate in decision-making processes, on both macro and micro levels and locally, nationally and internationally.

̽��ֱ��Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm dedicated to harnessing the power of markets to create opportunities for people to improve their lives. It was established in 2004 by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam. ̽��ֱ��network has since committed almost $450 million to for-profit and not-for-profit companies that foster economic advancement and individual participation.

An exciting venture dedicated to the sharing of knowledge and information, the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) is creating a worldwide ecosystem of searchable data and the tools to interpret that data. Founded by Cambridge economist Rufus Pollock, OKF has big ambitions in fields that range from sonnets to statistics.

Embedded in OKF’s youthful and inclusive culture are the “Pantonprinciples”, guidelines drawn up in its local pub, the Panton Arms.

Open Knowledge Foundation

Rufus Pollock

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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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Yes

Connecting science and policy

lw355 — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 14:37:41 +0000

Decisions that affect everyday lives and the course of human history are not always made on the best evidence. Factors that influence public policy decisions include economic climate, political context and morally derived priorities. Yet, arguably the most important factor – evidence – is often treated as an afterthought.

A large amount of research is pertinent to public policy. But a seemingly tiny amount of that knowledge makes it through to the policy world. This is a frustration not only for the research community but also for the policy community. Even with the best intentions, it is not always easy to ensure that the right research finds the right policy makers at the right time.

̽��ֱ��Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP), launched in July 2009, is playing its part to fix the problem. Its mission is to help build productive and lasting relationships between researchers and policy makers wherever research is relevant to policy. Its approach is to build an energetic network of policy-conscious researchers and research-conscious policy makers.

Policy Fellows

̽��ֱ��Policy Fellows Programme brings policy makers from Whitehall and Westminster, and members of industry, to Cambridge to meet with academics in one-to-one meetings in a range of subjects. ̽��ֱ��Programme is valuable to the policy professionals, giving them a refresh in their policy area and helping them to develop a network of experts on whom they can call for advice. And it is also valuable to the participating academics who gain contacts in the policy world and a viable mechanism for helping their research to find a policy home.

Recent Policy Fellow Lucia Costanzo, Head of European Union (EU) Research Policy at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), found that the experience gave her in-depth exposure to the ̽��ֱ�� and its engagement with the wider science community: ‘It also allowed me to gain a clearer picture of how the EU research agenda impacts on researchers at Cambridge – providing real insights that will inform my ongoing policy work.’

Policy workshops

̽��ֱ��wider network of CSaP Associates coalesces into Centre Interest Groups, which every few months bring together policy makers, science experts and industry representatives to generate new ideas within a specific interest area. A core mission is to scan the horizon for research topics of potential interest before they become major issues of policy.

Policy workshops take several forms. Some start with an initial show-and-tell, others with a brainstorm; all take the form of engaging and often vigorous discussion. Recent and upcoming workshops have been convened in response to topics of relevance to those attending from the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).

In addition to all of these activities, CSaP also runs seminars for Associates and early career researchers. One of the goals of these events, other than promoting engagement and knowledge transfer, is to offer researchers the chance to learn about the policy process: to gain a better understanding of the constraints within which policy makers operate and to learn about the opportunities to influence public policy.

̽��ֱ��Centre is already making an impact on influencing the use of research in the development of policy. As one example, DEFRA’s Chief Economist recognised how CSaP’s inaugural workshop on ecosystems demonstrated improved methods of valuation, saying: ‘We will be looking again at how we use this research in developing policy’.

For more information, please contact Dr Christopher Tyler (cptyler@csap.cam.ac.uk) at the Centre for Science and Policy (www.csap.org.uk/).

Dr Chris Tyler, Executive Director of Cambridge’s Centre for Science and Policy, explains how and why the Centre is helping the best scientific thinking to inform public policy.

CSAP

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Yes

Bridging research and industry

lw355 — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 14:25:24 +0000

As well as helping Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� academics enter into commercialisation arrangements for their discoveries, Cambridge Enterprise also provides a managed service to help them apply their knowledge to real-life situations by undertaking consultancy work.

Dr Paul Seabright heads the Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Technical Services Limited (CUTS) at Cambridge Enterprise, which now manages 200 consultancy projects per annum in subject areas that range from engineering to economics, physics to philosophy and computer sciences to clinical medicine.

‘In consultancy, as opposed to collaborative research,’ he explains, ‘academics apply their personal expertise to help a client organisation solve problems that are specific to the client’s business. It’s one of the principal mechanisms by which knowledge that has practical applications can be disseminated to the public and private sector, and the ̽��ֱ�� can make its earliest direct impact on society.’

̽��ֱ��number of consultancy projects undertaken through Cambridge Enterprise continues to grow rapidly; in fact, a third of projects handled over the past year were from first-time consultants. ̽��ֱ��type of projects vary widely between expert witness appearances and tendered public contracts, while the broad scope of projects reflects the wide range of ̽��ֱ�� research that is in demand by both industry and government.

Expert knowledge

Consultancy can involve a problem-solving activity that has tangible results. Dr Minna Sunikka-Blank of the Department of Architecture, for instance, conducted a social and technical performance monitoring analysis for PRP Architects Ltd, aiming to discover how and why tenants alter their energy-use habits. ̽��ֱ��information contributed to ‘Retrofit for the Future’, an initiative of the Technology Strategy Board which aims to retrofit the existing housing to meet future emissions targets. Also from the Department of Architecture, Michael Ramage designed and supervised the installation of a brick and mortar dome structure for ‘ ̽��ֱ��Bowls Project’, part of the annual New Frequencies Music Festival presented by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco.

In many cases, consultancy takes the form of the delivery of expert opinion. Professor David Newbery of the Faculty of Economics wrote an analysis of policy options for the funding of a Carbon Capture and Storage demonstration plant in the UK. And Professor David Farrington, from the Institute of Criminology, completed a feasibility study for the National Policing Improvement Agency on the impact of closed-circuit television upon criminal justice outcomes.

CUTS

̽��ֱ��managed service provided by CUTS helps academics to concentrate on the project and the relationship with the client without any distraction about contractual matters or the management of the administrative issues associated with the project. Meanwhile, client organisations are able to commission work from individual staff who have cutting-edge expertise, under contract with a professionally managed limited liability company backed by the ̽��ֱ�� and utilising the ̽��ֱ��’s insurance cover. ‘ ̽��ֱ��contractual terms ensure that both the client and the member of staff gain mutual benefit from the relationship,’ explains Dr Seabright, ‘and the ̽��ֱ�� frequently benefits from the longer term substantial relationships, including research collaborations that develop from consultancy activity.’

For more information, please contact Dr Paul Seabright (cuts@enterprise.cam.ac.uk) at Cambridge Enterprise Limited (www.enterprise.cam.ac.uk/).

Consultancy is an effective way for academics to share their knowledge and expertise, bridging the gap between research and industry.

Consultancy is one of the principal mechanisms by which knowledge that has practical applications can be disseminated to the public and private sector, and the ̽��ֱ�� can make its earliest direct impact on society.

Dr Paul Seabright

Rien van Ruthoven

Brick and mortar dome

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Yes