Knowledge exchange

Knowledge exchange is a process that brings together academic staff, users of research and wider groups and communities to exchange ideas, evidence and expertise.

While knowledge exchange is often considered part of a university’s research activity, it includes a broad range of activities that share higher education knowledge and skills with those outside universities.

Those activities can include:

• partnerships between universities and major manufacturers
• industry-related curriculum development
• work placements for students
• graduate start-ups supported by incubator spaces at providers.

Our work on knowledge exchange

We are working with Research England to understand the impact of knowledge exchange activity at higher education providers.

This includes joint funding to explore the benefits to students and graduates of being involved in knowledge exchange activities.

We have commissioned SQW to evaluate the student engagement in knowledge exchange programme. We published two interim evaluation reports in April 2022 and one in August 2022. 

The final report was published in November 2023.

Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF)

Research England have responsibility for distributing HEIF funding to providers which is used to support and develop knowledge exchange activities.

This funding is underpinned by the Higher Education Statistics Agency's Higher Education Business and Community Interaction Survey (HE-BCI) which is currently under review.

The OfS will be contributing to both the HE-BCI survey review and the wider review of knowledge exchange funding being led by Research England in 2022.

In order to demonstrate that the £48 million contribution from the Department for Education to the £230 million HEIF is delivering value for money, we commissioned a report with Research England to look at the key issues and methods for assessing the impact of this funding on student outcomes.

Further information about the HEIF is available through the Research England website.