UK researchers set out plans to be more commercial

UK commercial success: advances in polymer optoelectronics have led to flexible, bright displays. Image courtesy EPSRC.

Research Councils UK (RCUK) is to set up a national forum for knowledge transfer as part of a new strategy for maximising the value of the £2.8 billion of public money it allocates each year.

The strategy also envisages commissioning studies to evaluate the economic impact of its grants, and surveys to ensure that investments are aligned with the needs of users.

RCUK, an umbrella body representing all aspects of publicly funded research, from arts and humanities to particle physics and astronomy, has been under pressure from the government to strengthen knowledge transfer and be more proactive in driving through the commercialisation of research.

This pressure applies equally to arts and humanities – which are seen as having important contributions to make to economic growth through underpinning urban regeneration or tourism for example – and to physical or life sciences research.

The aim of the national forum is to address barriers to innovation. RCUK will invite organisations in the field to contribute, in a bid to develop practical mechanisms for encouraging innovation to flower. It will include universities and research institutes with private sector users of research and the regional development agencies.

The hope is that this will promote increased collaboration between business and the research base. At the same time, RCUK says it will work with universities to engender a “culture in which collaboration and exploitation are valued.”

One mechanism for achieving this will be to evaluate levels of collaboration and activities that contribute to economic impact as part of the five-year Research Assessment Exercise, by which universities are ranked against their peers.

Individual researchers will be encouraged to participate in knowledge transfer, and there will be support for exchanges of staff between business and the research base.

RCUK’s proposals not only affect the outcomes of research it funds: in future it plans to assess the potential economic impact of research as part of its deliberations over grant applications.