About The Knowledge Exchange Metrics Programme

UCI is proud to act as national knowledge exchange data and metrics advisors to Research England working alongside them on their national knowledge exchange (KE) metrics development programme.

The ambition for better data on KE

In 2023 Research England announced a major strategic ambition to develop new and improved KE data, metrics and evidence to better inform approaches to funding, government policy and university practice in future.

This reflects the growing interest around improving KE metrics and evidence, and the importance of this to inform strategic decision-making on where and how to invest to deliver increased value through KE. Universities also face broader pressures to demonstrate they are delivering economic and societal impact.

A step change in data on KE is integral to:

• More accurately evidence the total contribution that universities make to economic and societal prosperity and convince policymakers and the public of the importance of this contribution.
• Enable higher education funding bodies, notably Research England to more effectively allocate public funding (by data-driven formula, competitive grant or otherwise), as well as monitor and evaluate the success of such funding programmes.
• Deepen understanding of KE in practice, enabling and incentivising effective strategic learning by universities within the system to drive innovation and improvement.
• Provide universities with the tools they need to benchmark and improve their performance.
• Demonstrate to external partners the potential value that KE can bring their organisations, forging stronger collaborations between universities and the wider world.

Realising this ambition

UCI and Research England are working in partnership with the Higher Education Statistics Agency (part of Jisc) on a joint programme to design and collect next generation metrics for KE.

The programme includes ambitious workstreams covering a range of dimensions of knowledge exchange, currently:

• Progressing improvements to university spinout data.
• Focus on university’s role and contributions to place and local growth.
• Developing an underpinning analytical framework for the breadth of KE metrics.

Key considerations during implementation

Developing better data and metrics takes time and effort. Metrics need to be high quality; they need to be meaningful, robust, and complete across a diverse university sector.

While Research England has specific needs in this space, the programme also commits to exploring how data can be interoperable: able to serve a range of evidence needs, balancing the value of the insights data unlocks with the burden of its collection.

In implementing our work and advice to the programme, we are carefully considering:

• Balancing quantitative and qualitative measures.
• Avoiding perverse incentives that could distort behaviour.
• Ensuring metrics account for different types of institutions with different strategies and strengths.
• Protecting space for innovation and experimentation.