by Real Business - Thursday, 30th August 2007

Universities and business have never been the happiest of bedfellows. Four years ago Gordon Brown declared this frosty relationship unacceptable, and launched the Higher Education Innovation Fund to tackle the problem. Money has not been in short supply: by 2008 over £700m will have been poured into the fund to bring the dons out of their ivory towers and into Britain’s businesses.

There is no shortage of supporters for the fund’s goal. Former FT editor Richard Lambert told an independent review for the government that every aspect of British business could be improved by closer collaboration, especially research and development. The CBI has repeatedly urged universities to make their research more widely available to business. Gordon Brown himself regards the issue as his pet project, and refers to it in speeches wherever possible.

But even if the fund changes the way academics see business, don’t expect hoards of caped dons and lecturers to down their mortar boards and come banging at the doors of your business to teach you high-level accountancy skills or the ABC of corporate finance.

As Tony McBride, the CBI’s policy adviser technology and innovation, notes, the kind of collaboration that is beneficial to business works at a higher level. “There is much to be gained through collaboration,” he says. “Many businesses already engage extensively with academic institutions in a range of activities from contract research, medium and long term partnerships including basic and applied research, consultancy, course sponsorship and secondment.”

The aim of the fund is to build on this and make higher education institutions offer their knowledge, research and facilities openly available to businesses. This means going beyond technological input, research and courses, to consultancy services that even small business can call on.

One place where this is already happening is in the East of England in a project called i10. This is an unlikely alliance between ten academic institutions in the region, including the Norwich School of Art and Design, the agriculture focused Writtle College, and the region’s universities.

After receiving £4.5m funding in 2003 it has spent the last year building a website that advertises the specialist skills of the member institutions. Moana Pledger of i10 says that the project has focused the academics on what local businesses actually want from them. “We have worked hard to develop services that fit with the clusters of business across the region,” she says. “These are services that you won’t find anywhere else because they simply didn’t exist before. We are helping businesses in new and practical ways. For example, we have projects that put academics together with manufacturing companies to help them spot weaknesses in their processes to save money and help them compete better; we have our Enterprise Fellowship Scheme which is incubating promising entrepreneurs in the region; we have started networking groups for ICT businesses in the regions with speed-dating nights to matchmake businesses with academics who can help them solve business problems, and we have launched a region-wide graduate recruitment portal called GradsEast. We work across all the sectors of economic importance to the region.”

But are these schemes of any relevance to business? The feedback from local businesses has been positive. Peter Wills is managing director of Ludlows, a paints and coatings company in Luton. He has worked with i10 through Luton University in a Knowledge Transfer Partnership. This scheme places students in businesses to apply their skills on a specific commercial project, and subsidises their salary. In Ludlows’ case a Luton student worked on the national launch and marketing of a new paint product.

“We were looking at doing something different to expand into a new market. A partnership with Luton seemed like a good opportunity to take on someone bright, with a good degree, at a reasonable level of pay,” says Wills. “It has worked out very well. We are into the second year and Declan’s work has increased sales by around 100% against last year.”

At the CBI, McBride applauds i10, but says that the academics could get involved even more deeply with the businesses. He concedes that “it is early days for many of these projects and the new measures need time to bed down and take root before significant results can be seen.”

From the business community, enthusiasm for closer cooperation with academia is unflagging. Max Kantalia runs the HR software provider The MacLaren Partnership. He has worked with universities in the past. “If the brightest academics and students can be infused with a passion for fostering enterprise, it can only be for the good in stimulating future markets. Coupling the freshest of academic minds with entrepreneurial ventures is a powerful cocktail.” The model, he says, should be the US, where collabouration has a long tradition.

But many business are still unaware of what academia has to offer offering. Angus Drever is managing director of Cheltenham-based MMTV. He has no idea about the fund and university consultancies, nor how he would go about accessing such services. “I am not aware of the Government’s investment in this area and unless there is a marketing strategy to get the benefits out to business and to get their buy-in it’s a waste of money,” he says, suggesting the fund has some way to go before it can claim to have united town and gown.

WHERE NEXT?
Recruit subsidized university researchers or academics for your business: www.ktponline.org.uk/companies

Find out which institution near you has got funding and more background on university-business collaboration at the Higher Education Funding Council: www.hefce.org.uk.

Tags: british business, business community, business works, small business, university business collaboration, local businesses, solve business problems, britains businesses, helping businesses, ict businesses, matchmake businesses, brightest academics, i10, luton, put academics, academic institutions, applied research, contract research, project called i10, closer collaboration, consultancy services, worked hard, ten academic institutions, education innovation fund, research consultancy, collaboration, cbi, higher education, institutions, universities, beneficial, aim, secondment, research medium, knowledge research, basic and applied research, term partnerships, mortar boards, ivory towers, richard lambert, policy adviser, fund changes,