People

Tomas Ulrichsen

Director, UCI Policy Evidence Unit

Positions

  • Director, Policy Evidence Unit for University Commercialisation and Innovation (UCI)
  • National Advisor to Research England on knowledge exchange metrics

 

Research interests

  • Universities and innovation systems: roles, contributions and diversity
  • Influence of the demand and supply context on university-industry knowledge exchange
  • Configurations of knowledge exchange support within universities
  • University-industry partnership models
  • Capturing and demonstrating knowledge exchange performance
  • Improving the availability of robust evidence for knowledge exchange policymakers and practitioners

 

Background

 

I am the Director of the University Commercialisation and Innovation (UCI) Policy Evidence Unit at the University of Cambridge, and National Advisor to Research England on knowledge exchange metrics. I set up UCI in 2020 to support governments, funders, and universities in delivering a step change in the contributions universities can make to innovation and economic prosperity through their commercialisation and wider innovation-focused knowledge exchange activities and partnerships. In 2023, UCI was commissioned by Research England to support their development of a new national capability for KE data and metrics.

 

Our work aims to draw on the latest insights from both academia and practice, as well as learning from experiences in the UK and internationally.

 

I am an expert adviser to government funding agencies on knowledge exchange, and my work on the focus and impact of knowledge exchange funding has been instrumental in providing a robust evidence base to support their policy development and evaluation work. As part of my work for the Knowledge Exchange Framework Technical Advisory Group on Metrics, I developed the university clusters that underpin the KEF.


Prior to setting up the UCI Policy Evidence Unit, I was a researcher at the Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy at the University of Cambridge. Until 2012 I was Assistant Director of a leading UK economic development consultancy, Public and Corporate Economic Consultants (PACEC) directing and managing a range of strategic development and evaluation projects for public policy clients in the area of knowledge exchange, innovation and regional economic development.

 

He has an M.Phil in Economics from the Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge and a M.Eng in Aeronautical Engineering from Imperial College London, where his dissertation focused on turbulent boundary layers under varying shear conditions.

 

Expert Group Memberships

 

Selected Publications and Reports

 

CBR-PACEC Special Report Series on Knowledge Exchange

Contact Details

T: +44 (0) 1223 339741
Share This