Aston commended for work with businesses
Aston University 's successful track record of working with business and its role in local growth and regeneration have been recognised in a new national system for measuring universities ' contribution to knowledge exchange (KE) and the impact this has on the country.
The Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF), led by Research England, is a sector-wide, institutional-level exercise to inform and assess KE activities of UK higher education institutions and how they benefit society and the economy.
Compared to other universities with a similar profile in the exercise, Aston University is in the top 20 per cent for working with business and supporting local growth and regeneration.
This draws directly from Aston University 's strengths in collaborative research and its focus on providing consultancy solutions to industry problems. It also reflects its work through the government 's flagship Knowledge Transfer Partnership programme in which it is an acknowledged sector leader.
Aston University 's high performance for local growth and regeneration is a result of its investment in delivering business support programmes to SMEs and, more recently, helping them adapt and thrive during and after Covid-19 in areas such as advanced materials, data analytics and small business leadership development.
Aston University also performed well in the intellectual property (IP) and commercialisation category, being placed in the top 30 per cent of comparable institutions.
The KEF aims to increase efficiency and effectiveness in the use of public funding for KE and to further a culture of continuous improvement in universities.
It allows universities to better understand and improve their own performance, as well as providing businesses and other users with more information to help them access world-class knowledge and expertise.
Information about the ways in which universities help level up their local areas is one of the highlights of the data released in this first iteration of the KEF.
The data, available on the KEF 's interactive and detailed new website, informs a series of metrics that look at the performance of English higher education providers (HEPs) from a variety of different perspectives.
These include public and community engagement, working with partners - ranging from big businesses to small local firms - and how they commercialise their research.
This data shows the rich contributions English HEPs make, both economically and socially, on both local and national levels. The knowledge exchange that underpins the KEF will help promote cooperation and drive continuous improvement in the higher education sector.
The KEF sits alongside the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) and the Research Excellence Framework (REF). Together, they form an assessment of the quality of work universities undertake.
These results follow other recent national recognition for Aston University, including being named The Guardian University of the Year 2020 and The Times Entrepreneurial University of the Year 2020.
Professor Alec Cameron, Vice-Chancellor of Aston University, said: “Aston University has made a strategic choice to prioritise knowledge exchange, enterprise and public engagement to build on its core strengths of graduate employability, entrepreneurship, small business growth, innovation and research with impact.
“We have a history of generating societal benefit through innovation. The blockbuster brain cancer drug Temozolamide, originated at Aston University, started us on a path of adding value to everyday life through science that drives our intellectual property and spin-out activity to this day.
“We also use our knowledge exchange strengths to improve social mobility and address regional challenges through widening participation and pathway programmes to increase access to exclusive professions, support small business growth, promote sustainability and reduce health and other inequalities. ”