Technology Transfer Projects in the UK: An Analysis of University-Industry Collaboration

The Knowledge Transfer Partnership Scheme

In the same year that Chesbrough discussed and defined the open innovation concept, the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) specified a range of products for promoting and enabling knowledge transfer and innovation, in particular to support technology transfer to SMEs (DTI, 2003). One of these products is the KTP scheme, which provides direct financial support for graduates to undertake specific technology transfer projects in firms of all sizes, but particularly in SMEs, which are defined in a European context as having less than 250 staff (European Commission).

Interest in technology transfer, and more generally knowledge transfer (KT), and its role in promoting economic growth and job creation has been growing for over two decades in the UK. Hardhill and Baines (2009, p. 82) noted that “since 1993 the promotion of knowledge transfer to maximise public investment has been a recurrent theme in UK policy documents”, and the Lambert Review of Business-University Collaboration acknowledged the scale of public investment on teaching and research within the UK’s universities, and formally endorsed the belief that “transferring the knowledge and skills between universities and business and the wider community increases the economic and social returns” (Lambert, 2003, p. 31). More recently, the Sainsbury Review of the UK Government’s Science and Innovation Policies identified “knowledge transfer activity as an important way to make the most of publicly funded research and to increase innovation in business and public services” (Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, 2007, p. 60). In particular, the review recommended greater government financial support for business facing universities and increasing the number of KTPs.