University success in supporting innovation and jobs recognised in KEF
Manchester Met is at the forefront of supporting businesses, as well as the public and third sector to grow, innovate and create new jobs, new data shows.
These findings come from the latest Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) survey, the fourth of its kind, looking at the knowledge exchange activities of all universities over a three-year period from 2020 to 2023.
Data released today ranked Manchester Met in the top 20% of UK universities in two key areas of knowledge exchange:
- Its work supporting students and graduates to become entrepreneurs with around 120 start-ups supported each year
- Its engagement with Innovate UK funding, primarily through Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP), which fund collaborations between universities and external partners to create new products or develop solutions
Professor Nick Brook, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, said: “We’re a proud partner of industry, working together to tackle the big challenges facing society today and providing sustainable economic growth.
“The latest data from KEF shows that we’re engaging with a significant number of external partners to deliver research and knowledge exchange with impact, working with partners in the private, public and third sectors to identify problems and innovate solutions.
“It is particularly pleasing to see how highly rated we are for supporting our students and graduates to nurture their start-up businesses, which demonstrates how we support our students. And once again, Manchester Met has been recognised by the very high level of engagement with Innovate UK funding, primarily due to our success with KTPs for which we are ranked within the top five nationally for the volume of live KTPs taking place.”
Additionally, Manchester Met ranked well for its broad portfolio of local growth and regeneration programmes, as well as its high level of collaborative research partnerships including external partners, and its high level of engagement with business, the public and third sector through contract research and consultancy projects aimed at supporting organisations to innovate and grow.
Manchester Met offers 11 government-funded growth and innovation programmes, through which regional businesses can access industry-leading expertise from its Centre for Enterprise.
Over that past seven years, Manchester Met has leveraged £40m of government funding to support more than 2,000 companies.
This can range from exploring the transformative potential of AI, cyber security, industrial digitalisation, or immersive technologies through our £5m Centre for Digital Innovation (CDI) programme, to getting help exploiting the commercial potential of hydrogen as a fuel source as part of the drive to Net Zero, through our £2m Greater Manchester Electrochemical Hydrogen Cluster (GMEHC) programme.
External partners can also engage with academic experts, outside of these programmes, through more tailored innovation collaborations such as consultancy, contract research and KTPs, designed to address organisation-specific challenges or create new products or services.
