Enhancing Academic Engagement in Knowledge Transfer Activity in the UK

There has been an increasing call in the UK over the last decade for universities to become more entrepreneurial with a strengthening of university and industry/community links to contribute more significantly to the knowledge economy., and for UK higher education institutions (HEIs) to consider ways in which they can more actively engage in knowledge transfer (KT), whether from the application of research, the dissemination of expertise through consultancy or the transfer of best practice through CPD programmes. Whilst there are initiatives in place to support academics in activities aimed at securing commercial opportunities, this paper focuses on some primary research to establish: (1) competencies academics require to "enable" them to engage; (2) potential barriers. The objective of the research was to provide evidence-based information to help inform key Human Resource processes in order to further facilitate the embedding of KT activity into UK HEIs. This study suggests that the key focus at institutional level should be to implement systems to recognize and reward departments for KT, by including KT in staffing strategies and by adapting and reducing administrative systems to cope with the required flexibility of KT work. It also suggests that at the individual level, the key focus should be on appropriate workload planning to incorporate KT. (Contains 3 tables.)