January 2005/07
Policy development
Report on survey

This report is for information

 

 

---

Higher education-business and community interaction survey

2002-03

This report analyses the results of the 2004 higher education-business and community interaction survey for UK higher education institutions. It is the fourth annual survey of its kind. The 2004 survey shows continuing improvement in interactions between higher education and business by almost every indicator.

---

To:	Heads of publicly-funded higher education institutions in the UK
Of interest to those responsible for:	Links with business and the community, Research, Continuing vocational education, Funding, Planning
Reference:	2005/07
Publication date:	January 2005
Enquiries to:	Adrian Day tel 0117 9317428 e-mail a.day@hefce.ac.uk

---

Table of contents and executive summary (read on-line)

---

---

Contents

• Executive summary
• Background
• Outcomes and results
• Next steps
• Analysis
• Strategy
• Infrastructure
• Research-based interactions and intellectual property exploitation
• Social, community and cultural (SCC) activities
• Regeneration
• Education and CPD

Annexes

• Annex A    Full data by region and nation
• Annex B    Questionnaire part A (strategic/qualitative questions)
• Annex C    Questionnaire part B (numeric/financial questions)
• Annex D    International comparisons, IP-related
• Annex E    Development of the HE-business and community interaction survey
• Annex F    List of abbreviations
• Annex G    HE-BCI Stakeholders group
• Annex H    List of respondents

---

Executive summary

Purpose

1.    The higher education-business and community interaction survey (HE-BCI) has been developed as the primary vehicle for assessing the volume and development of higher education (HE) knowledge transfer, or rather exchange, between the UK HE sector on the one hand and business and the wider community on the other hand. This report presents and analyses the results of the 2004 HE-BCI survey of UK higher education institutions (HEIs). The survey enhances and continues the work of previous surveys, the last of which was published in January 2004. All financial and related data refer to the whole academic year 2002-03; data reported for infrastructure and capacity are a snapshot of the position as at 1 October 2004. Data were collected by HEFCE on behalf of all the UK HE funding bodies.

2.    Business in this context means private companies of all sizes and sectors, and public bodies (for example, both public and private bodies have ‘business’ needs such as IT systems and human resources consultancy). Community is taken to mean society as a whole, including all social, civic and cultural components.

3.    The HE-BCI survey is carried out:

• to provide data regarding the continuing development of interactions
• to provide reliable and relevant information to support the continued public funding of the third stream of HEIs’ activity
• to give HEIs good benchmarking and management information, and to develop a source of indicators at the level of the individual HEI, some of which will be useable to inform the allocation of their continued funding.

Key points

4.    The survey builds on previous HE-business interaction surveys but with significant changes in both content of the questions and data collection process. To reflect the broader range of indicators covered this year, the process has been renamed HE-Business and Community Interaction Survey. Questions include numerical – including financial – sections, which often relate to changing levels of activity and output where the year-on-year trends are potentially informative and significant indicators of change. These generally reflect aggregate data for a whole academic year. Other questions which refer to more gradually evolving data, such as strategies and structures, were dealt with via the extranet; information submitted this way can be updated by the HEI as and when changes take place, and is therefore more current.

5.    Data are categorised by country and English region, as with previous surveys. However, results have not been analysed by ‘research profile’. (Due to the diversity of the HE sector and the rapid developments in individual institutional strategies, research profile – always a somewhat artificial categorisation – was not found to add value.) Individual HEIs are not identified. However, every HEI was given the option to permit its data to be put on CD-ROM along with other HEIs which also gave their permission. This option has been taken up by 48 per cent of HEIs, and has served to provide valuable benchmarking data for them; it also marks another step towards complete transparency which would be required if some HE-BCI survey metrics were to be used to inform the allocation of individual HEIs’ funding.

6.    The Government has published its response to the Lambert Review of Business-University collaborations, and incorporated it in its Science and Innovation Investment Framework 2004-2014. This framework declares support for several Lambert recommendations including the development and expansion of the third stream of HE funding, for which the main route in England is the HE Innovation Fund (HEIF). The framework states that future HEIF funding in England should be substantially by metrics-based formulae; the third round of HEIF will award funding for 2006-07 and 2007-08, and may be partially informed by data gathered under HE-BCI.

7.    164 HEIs were invited to respond to the survey (four of these HEIs chose not to provide data and were informed they would be classed as nil returns); there is one more HEI represented in the 2002-03 data set than in the capacity and infrastructure snapshot taken on 1 October 2004 due to a merger. The level of completeness of individual responses was encouraging considering the changes to the survey since last year. To ensure the data were as robust as possible, as in previous years, a range of accuracy, sanity and validity checks was carried out. Where possible, data were also correlated with data from other sources which, although not duplicating the HE-BCI survey, permitted some deductive comparisons.

8.    Some of the 2004 survey results are not directly comparable with the previous years’ surveys, due to changes in some questions and definitions. Having allowed for this, we can deduce the following:

1. Overall the survey data show a continuing improvement in HE-business interactions. There is evidence of growing ownership by HEIs of their own distinctive approaches to contributing to the economy and society (their third stream strategies), reflecting the diversity of the HE sector. There is an increase in the commitment to supporting small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) and meeting regional skills needs. Provision of a single enquiry point for business and working with SMEs to determine their needs from HE is available at 89 per cent and 79 per cent of HEIs respectively.

2. Significant increases in income are reported from consultancy (up by 38 per cent from a year ago), access to equipment and facilities (32 per cent), and regeneration funding (16 per cent). UK total collaborative research income has risen for the third year running.

3. The number of HE staff reported whose main role is working with business and the wider community is 4,134 full-time equivalents. Since this is the first time the HEIs have been asked to split such dedicated third stream staff according to the area of activity addressed, it is possible that this figure is not entirely robust.

4. The turnover of formal spin-off companies (both with and without HEI ownership) was £358 million, with an employment of nearly 13,000 full-time-equivalent staff. Intellectual property-based income, from licensing and sale of shares in spin-offs, appears to have diminished slightly – although most of the apparent drop is accounted for in English regions, and some HEIs have reported that previous years’ figures may have been double counted.

5. Comparisons with data from the North American situation are complex. However, it remains apparent that 2002-03 UK exploitation of intellectual property (IP) focused more on spin-off activity and less on licensing than at HEIs in the US.

9.    HEFCE, the Office of Science and Technology and other members of the HE-BCI stakeholders group (see Annex G) will review the outcomes of the survey, in preparation for the 2005 survey (which will be based on 2003-04 data). They will aim to:

• stabilise the questions and the process as far as possible, allowing future trend data to be treated with greater certainty
• increase the validity of the results
• further develop the link between the survey, HEIF 3 and other policies
• ensure that no items of data are collected if their utility is not demonstrated.

Action required

10.    This report is for information.