This online course is expected to run in July 2021, with exact dates to be confirmed. Please register your interest in attending by completing the online form ('Register Your Interest'). If you cannot see the button, please ensure you have logged in or created an account at the top of the page first.
You will be contacted once the dates are confirmed and places will then be allocated on a first-come-first-serve basis.
This form is to register your interest in the course only and is not confirmation a place has been allocated to you.
Course Dates
Courses will run over a number of sessions during the time period indicated. The confirmed dates will be issued shortly.
Event Costs (for online delivery)
Member Price - £675
Non-member Price - £897
Prices are not VAT applicable and reflect the total cost.
Delegate Capacity
Delegate spaces will be limited on each course delivery. The smaller cohorts will help ensure you are able to make the most of the materials and the sessions. Places will be offered on a first-come-first-serve basis.
Is this course right for me?
This course is for people who are new to business development in HE/research organisations or new to business development altogether. They may not have much experience of working with business and probably not much experience of how university business engagement works.
Delegates will most likely be working in higher education, public sector research organisations, and potentially in businesses too. They may have significant experience in aspects of internal management of TT/Knowledge Exchange (KE), but less knowledge and understanding of the specific issues around business development. They may be focusing on a discipline area or a particular sector e.g. Healthcare, Arts and Culture, Physics, Biosciences.
Why should I attend this course?
Universities are increasingly expecting their academics to diversify income streams, build pathways to impact and support knowledge exchange. Academics are busy and often don’t have the skills needed to build relationships and engage effectively with business. With Impact as a major new driver, we expect that more staff with a business development or business engagement role will be recruited.
It is easy to make contacts but much harder to turn these into valuable, long-term, productive relationships. This course aims to make this process more straightforward and efficient and give the delegates tools to help them add value to the academic or scientist with whom they are working.
What will I learn from the course?
What is business development all about?
The challenge of presenting an offer to a crowded and fragmented market (internal and external)
Understanding where your offer fits in the value chain
The different ways in which universities interact with business and mechanisms that can be used to facilitate that.
How to engage with different markets
Hear what industry really thinks of your services and how we can improve them
Tips on networking and building a wide and varied network of contacts
How to use tools such as marketing databases, client relationship management (CRM), marketing and social media to achieve your goals
How to lead conversations with customers to generate interest and enthusiasm and move relationships towards agreements
How to define the elements of an efficient deal by focussing on the needs of the parties
How to be a successful account manager
Delegates will have the opportunity to hear from (and speak directly with) academic, industrial and business development practitioners. There will also be ample opportunity for networking with other delegates, the course team and other contributors. Delegates will have the opportunity to solve their own business development problems with the help of the course delegates.
PLEASE NOTE: There may be a requirement for delegates to undertake some pre-course work/reading before the course begins.
