Research England originally proposed the purpose of the KEF to be threefold:
If you are an academic trying to build a business from your ideas it can be pretty lonely, particularly when you are working with a hard pressed local tech transfer team who don’t have much time available to spend on each disclosure. Moving things forward quickly when no one has enough time or resource to really focus means that projects often have to develop incrementally and can consume a lot of sub-optimal effort with no guarantee of success.