Reflecting on the past 6 years of supporting Innovation within the Midlands region.

A conversation with a former colleague reminded me yesterday that I started my first role in Knowledge Exchange and Innovation 6 years ago this week.

How time flies.......

When I started in this specialism 6 years ago, I remember telling my friends and family about my career shift from a varied career in recruitment, training and careers. Most had no idea about what knowledge exchange and innovation even meant......some still don't.

For those not familiar with those terms, essentially, I help businesses to fulfill their potential and help with their ambitions to launch new products and services. I do this by trying to understand the gaps of their capacity, capability and knowledge. Then I putting together a solution, in the form of a bespoke project and project team from Staffordshire University - via our academic specialists and graduates.

For the last 6 years, I have utilised millions of pounds of EU funding for businesses, now I can also draw down funding from the Government to support them with Innovation.

As we have left the EU this funding pot is coming to an end, however we still have the Government funding available! A lot of the government funding is focused on funding KTPs which supports the costs of having a specialist team in place to fill those gaps. This is via a government backed knowledge transfer partnership, where typically - 50% to 75% of the overall project costs will be funded by the government. So the company/CIC or charity pay the remaining contribution on a monthly basis.

The team consists of a graduate and with specialist academic support and with a project budget in place they are selected and chosen for the value they can add and they can work wonders as a team. We are starting a roadshow and putting together case studies about the impact and successes that these projects can bring.

What I have experienced is that businesses can get great results when they have a focused and specialist team in place, KTPs can also look at improving internal processes and improvements too through a management KTP - so its not just about launching new products and services.

In the last 6 years, I have had the pleasure to support 100's of companies, working at two Universities to get funding to support their ideas for products and services. I have had the pleasure in seeing lots those ideas/products and services thrive through various small and large innovation projects. Lots of these businesses have grown as a result of the projects we have put in place. In this time have learned about various sectors, visited lots of businesses and become well versed in all aspects of innovation support.

I am looking forward to the year ahead, seeing lots more ideas come to fruition and supporting even more companies with Innovation and KTP funding bids. I am excited to be able to support CICs and Charities too drawing down 75% of the costs from government for a KTP!

(KTP's) Knowledge Transfer Partnerships are the most proven model to support innovation and they have been running for over 30 years. Now they even more relevant than ever and there is government funding available to support the costs of these up to 1000 KTP projects nationally.

I think they are a very cost effective model considering the package of support that you get and you can also attract a R&D tax credit claims too. I set up a successful KTP last year and I am looking forward to set more of these up in 2023.

I am more than happy to have a chat with anyone about KTPs. Have you had an innovation project in the past? Or a KTP? Id be interested to hear about your experiences of working with Universities on such projects.