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Analysis of institutions' plans for round 3 of the Higher Education Innovation Fund

June 2008

Summary

This report analyses 133 Higher Education Innovation Fund round 3 (HEIF 3) institutional plans. HEIF supports institutions to engage in a broad range of knowledge transfer activities with business, public sector and community partners, for economic and social benefit.

HEFCE commissioned external consultants SQW Ltd to inform HEFCE, and other stakeholders, on the uses of HEIF 3 funds and the potential outputs. The second purpose was to make recommendations on the format of institutional plans for possible future funding rounds.

The study found that tentative conclusions could be reached about the planned use of HEIF 3 funding. The report concludes, however, that the plans were of limited value for sector-level information on activities and projected outputs.

SQW Ltd separately made recommendations to HEFCE about improving the format of plans and these recommendations have fed into HEFCE's work to develop requirements for HEIF 4 from 2008-09.