All of the Councils aim to encourage increased levels of university and business or user interaction through support for brokering and networking activities and technology procurement. Research Council Institutes also provide core capabilities around which clusters and networks have successfully grown.
Brokering and networking
Specific examples include:
- AHRC is launching a new national Research Exchange Network for arts and humanities researchers and knowledge transfer professionals. The Network will offer opportunities to engage and collaborate in the exchange of research knowledge within and outside academia.
- EPSRC runs the "Ideas Factory" - an approach that brings together multidisciplinary teams of researchers and users for a week to address significant business or societal challenges. Successful collaborative ideas which emerge from these events are able to draw on earmarked funding to pursue their ideas.
- ESRC runs the CONNECT Club which facilitates social and economic research findings directly to senior policy makers in central and local government, business and financial sectors and the voluntary sector amongst others.
- STFC runs the Knowledge, Innovation, Technology and Enterprise (KITE) Club which is an active programme of brokering and networking to increase the awareness of industry and other users and the academic community of each other’s strengths, needs and opportunities.
Procurement
The Research Councils use high-technology procurement to stimulate innovation by raising businesses awareness of the opportunities available in the construction and use of research facilities. BBSRC and STFC are working together (with UKAEA and DTI) to address this specifically through a new Knowledge Transfer Network.
Research Council Institute clusters
BBSRC, in collaboration with the East of England Development Agency (EEDA) provides a technology Development Fund for the biocubator facility at its Babraham Institute. The facility is now full, with 28 companies on site (over 15 per cent of all biotechnology companies in the Cambridge area) increasing employment and contributing to regional economic prosperity.
STFC is investing in campus development projects at its laboratories at Harwell and at Daresbury, which will offer new environments for collaborative research and people exchange. Over £50 million has been invested at the Daresbury campus by the NWDA creating 24,000 sq ft of laboratory space. To date, seventeen high technology companies have been attracted to the site with another four planned. A similar development is planned at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory at Harwell.