Kingston University's expertise in enterprise education and community partnerships recognised in latest Knowledge Exchange Framework

Posted Monday 23 September 2024

Kingston University's track record in enabling graduate start-ups and its positive impact on communities have been recognised in the latest Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF).

In the recently released KEF results for 2024, the University has been assessed as having very high or high engagement in two of the seven perspectives – continuing professional development (CPD) and graduate start-ups, and public and community engagement.

The University has also maintained its position across four additional perspectives in the framework, which cover intellectual property and commercialisation, local growth and regeneration, working with business, and working with the public and third sector.

Developed by Research England as a way of assessing how universities benefit society and the economy through the knowledge they create, the KEF evaluates the range of activities institutions conduct with external partners, relative to other universities in a benchmark cluster. Data covering a wide range of a university's activities informs the seven perspectives.

The University has retained a very high engagement rating in the area of CPD and graduate start-ups, exemplified by its long-standing reputation in enterprise education. Kingston is consistently ranked as having one of the highest number of graduate start-ups among UK universities. Each year several thousand students are engaged in action learning, hackathons and start-up competitions through enterprise education activity, in turn building a pipeline of entrepreneurial students who can go on to start a business.

In the public and community engagement category, the University was once again ranked as having very high engagement. A core focus of its Town House Strategy, the University continues to build on its community engagement activities, with years of successful collaborations. Collaborations span the local authority, creative agencies, charities, community and business groups, resulting in mutually beneficial social, cultural and economic objectives across a range of projects.

In the working with business perspective, the University was assessed as having very high engagement in the metric that measures the proportion of research income from Innovate UK. This reinforces the University's longstanding reputation in successfully bringing together academics and business through Knowledge Transfer Partnerships.

Dr Martin Davies, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Knowledge Exchange and Innovation, said the results of this year's exercise demonstrated the impact of work being done across the University to support partnerships at local, regional and national levels. "Developing strong relationships with industry partners through which we can share our expertise and talent, build entrepreneurial thinking and support innovative businesses are key pillars of our Town House Strategy," he said. "The results of this year's KEF again confirms the impact we are making through our knowledge exchange activity and the positive outcomes it is having for our staff, students and the wider community."

The majority of the data that forms the KEF metrics is drawn from the long-standing HESA Higher Education Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey.