Knowledge Exchange Framework: which university performed best?

The University of Southampton has outperformed its rivals overall in the latest update to England’s Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF), analysis suggests.

The fourth annual release of KEF results rates English universities on how well they engage with industry, the economy and society, relative to the rest of the sector.

Across the seven different categories, or “perspectives”, Southampton was found to have very high engagement in four – intellectual property and commercialisation, public and community engagement, working with business, and working with the public and third sector.

It was also awarded high engagement in the other three categories – research partnerships, continuing professional development and graduate start-ups, and local growth and regeneration.

Times Higher Education’s analysis awarded providers between one and five points based on providers’ scores for each of the five award categories (very low to very high engagement) across the seven different perspectives.

This gave Southampton, grouped in “cluster V” of Russell Group institutions, a combined score of 32 points – suggesting it is the most engaged in knowledge exchange activity of all 139 English providers in the data.

Mark Spearing, the university’s vice-president for research and enterprise, said the achievement reflects the relevance of the institution’s “triple helix strategy”, which draws knowledge exchange and enterprise (KEE) activities together with education and research.

“The University of Southampton contributes more than £4 billion to the UK economy each year, largely due to our high-performing KEE activities,” he added.

The KEF results, which aim to allow providers to better understand and improve their own performance in knowledge exchange, showed that cluster V, of very large, very highly research-intensive and broad-discipline universities, performed best overall.

On average, the group recorded very high engagement in the IP and commercialisation category, and high engagement in four others.

Specialist institutions that are part of the arts cluster performed poorest in the results, with very low engagement in the research and partnerships and the working with business categories.

THE’s analysis shows that Southampton recorded the same top results in the KEF last year – tied with the University of Leicester, which is part of cluster X of large, high-research-intensive universities with a broad academic disciplinary base.

This year, Leicester achieved very high engagement in four categories, high engagement in two and one medium engagement – a combined score of 31.

Phil Baker, its pro vice-chancellor for research and enterprise, said: “The University of Leicester sees the latest KEF results as a clear confirmation of the effective delivery of our strategy to engage with and positively impact non-academic partners.”

The KEF data is not intended to be used to derive a single overall score, but Professor Baker said THE’s analysis provided an “innovative view” of the results which highlights an institution’s performance across the range of perspectives.

With five categories of very high engagement, one high and one low, Imperial College London’s performance also received 31 points.

Mary Ryan, vice-provost for research and enterprise, said the translation of research for the benefit of society was core to Imperial’s mission.

“It is impressive to see the impact the whole HE sector is having in delivering tangible real-world change,” she added.

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com