KEF progress - CPHCImpact of IP income (cf. AUTM running royalties and gross product sales) 5. Anything that makes KEF metrics fair, robust and useful to a variety of audiences Title

KEF progress

Hamish McAlpineApril 2018

UK Research and Innovation

UKRI


Research England


“Research England will create and sustain the conditions for a healthy and dynamic research and knowledge exchange system in English higher education institutions.”

It will have four main roles:• Funding for HEIs to deliver research and KE, unlocking potential, generating impact,

meeting national priorities and global challenges• System intelligence and analytics: gathering evidence of impact of current and future

R+KE policy on English university sector, including on effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability

• Engagement with HEIs: understanding HEI strategy, capability and capacity, delivering policy to support continuous improvement and behaviour change

• Close working with devolved administrations on UK‐wide activity to help UKRI deliver national priorities and become experts on UK HE system.

Research England


Like the other eight councils, Research England will have devolved budgets and responsibilities within UKRI that relate to its funding and policies for English HEIs.

We will:• Take a HEI view that complements the disciplinary focus of RCs and business focus of

Innovate UK• Have a distinctive England‐only role that will need to link with devolved administrations to

help UKRI develop a UK‐wide focus on HEI issues • Provide underpinning funding for HEIs that complements project focus of research councils

and demand‐side innovation focus of Innovate UK• Deliver capital funding that supports new partnerships between universities and business,

including via RPIF• Support high‐performance knowledge exchange through capacity and capability

development, including working with OfS on HEIF.

KE Landscape – 8 features


1. Target to increase R&D expenditure to 2.4% GDP

2. Industrial Strategy white paper

3. HEIF to £250m by 2020/21 (In support of the industrial strategy)

4. Connecting Capability Fund awards

5. The creation of UKRI & Research England

6. A new minister

7. Forthcoming Knowledge Exchange Framework exercise

8. The evolving nature of KE practice

KEF – two pillars


Timescales


Jan 2018 • Call for evidence ‐ focus on metrics, fair comparison and

presentation/visualisation (105 responses)Feb‐March

• Digest evidence • Detailed analysis work

April• Initial metrics and approach

Late spring 2018• Recommend detailed design• Launch consultation

Current trajectory


1. Institutional level2. Annual3. Largely metrics‐driven, with some (unassessed)

narrative component4. Not comparing everyone to everyone (fair

comparison)

Key design considerations


1. A balanced view of KE – not all about commercialisation

2. Fair comparison3. Consideration of robustness of data vs. burden of

collection4. Audiences and how to present to them5. Future link to funding – sufficient progress needs to

be made on metrics to recommend an appropriate approach.

What do we consider KE?

UK Research and Innovation T. Coates‐Ulrichsen, 2015

Fair comparison


‐ Different types of institution and KE‐ Exploring statistical clustering of peers based on variables

affecting capacity to undertake KE‐ Various approaches to normalisation‐ Dealing with lumpy data (e.g. regeneration capital, IP

income)‐ Small numbers, sensitive to small changes‐ Outliers‐ Exploring role of narrative/contextual information to

supplement presentation of metrics

Fair comparison?


Important Note: Example only – not indicative of final metrics. This example is intended to illustrate the effect of normalisation to provoke discussion. Based on real but old data.

Lumpy data


Audiences (and how to present to them)


Universities (for understanding and improving performance) vs.

Users, for public accountability and helping to inform decisions on who to work with

‐ Different types of businesses‐ Local‐ The public/third sector‐ Public and community

HE-BCI review


With HESA, we intend to review the data collected via the HE‐BCI survey. This could potentially provide new data for the KEF, but the review isn’t just about KEF metrics:

Areas of interest (to me, at least)

1. The changing nature of strategic relationships2. Equality & Diversity (particularly in Enterprise and Entrepreneurship)3. Potential for data linking – particularly patents spin‐offs and student start‐

ups4. Impact of IP income (cf. AUTM running royalties and gross product sales) 5. Anything that makes KEF metrics fair, robust and useful to a variety of

audiences

Documents

KEF progress - CPHCImpact of IP income (cf. AUTM running royalties and gross product sales) 5. Anything that makes KEF metrics fair, robust and useful to a variety of audiences Title