Prepare to take your first step as a leader in Knowledge Exchange
Event description
Knowledge Exchange (KE) is an increasingly important area for Higher Education Institutes (HEIs). Thanks to research funders and government policy – notably the R&D roadmap and KE Concordat - KE is increasingly embedded within an HEI’s strategy and activity. Outcomes, outputs, and impact are looked for at local, national and international levels. At the same time, in our pandemic-led year, the pace of change in KE and the HEI environment has never been greater and expectations around the role of research in social, economic and cultural renewal are high.
Leading a university KE team therefore calls for a combination of skills across KE strategy, leadership and management alongside a need to understand the political drivers affecting universities in general, and those of your own institution in particular. How each HEI interprets the external environment within their own strategy and performance measures will influence the KE leadership and team structure.
By joining this course, you will learn the skills needed to create and deliver an aligned KE strategy for your team, your institution, and its stakeholders. As the next generation of KE leaders you will also be ready to inform and influence the future direction of KE policy.
Training Outcomes
Through a continuous improvement process the course has been updated to enable delegates to:
Confidently describe and understand the impact of current ‘external’ political drivers for KE in the UK and their relationship to other areas of HEIs’ core business
Demonstrate a clear understanding of their institutional KE environment and strategy, and the decision-making hierarchy in their own organisation.
Understand management/influencing style and adapt it as appropriate when interacting with a diverse range of external and internal contacts
Develop confidence in managing uncertainty and ambiguity, whilst delivering a clear strategic vision for the organisation
Become an effective “agent of change” managing an environment of continual performance improvement
2025 Dates
October 2025
Venue: TBC
Costs do not include accommodation and travel. PraxisAuril cannot make bookings on behalf of delegates. Once you have made your booking, you will receive your accommodation reference in your confirmation email.
Event fee: Non-Members £TBC Members £TBC
If you are interested in attending this course, please let us know and join our Interest Group by clicking on the button below.
Who should attend?
Knowledge Exchange staff who have been in a Knowledge Exchange operational role for at least 3 years and have recently moved (or expect soon to move) into a strategic leadership role in KE in their organisation. Please note that applications are welcome from non-university research organisations but applicants should be aware that examples and case studies will be drawn from the unviersity sector.
Experience can have been gained in any – or several - areas of KE. The course is not suitable for those with less than three years KE experience.
Attendance will be subject to successful completion of a short application process and provision of a personal supporting statement. Applicants will also be required to provide a supporting statement from their line manager.
This course will contain; group work, network evenings, and interactive activities
If you see no dates, please signup to the interest group to be advised when new course dates become available
Course Directors
Dr Anne Lane
Anne has a PhD in medicine from UCL and an Executive MBA from Molson Business School, Montreal. After research at UCL and Harvard Medical School, Anne worked for RTP Pharma Inc in Montreal,out-licensing and preparing valuations of the company’s portfolio for public listing. Anne joined UCL Ventures in 2000 and acted as consultant for the National Transfer Centre in the US. She is now CEO of UCLB, acts as Director and interim CEO on several of UCLB’s spinout companies and oversees the company’s licensing activity. Anne is also co chair of the Intellectual PropertyLawyers Organisation (TIPLO).
Diana Galpin
Diana is Director Enterprise & Knowledge Exchange at the University of Southampton. Diana qualified as barrister with a civil practice then moved in-house originally to a high tech start up before joining Southampton in 2003 to support on research and innovation.
Diana has experience of a number of industry sectors including healthcare and pharmaceutical, aerospace and defence and IT. She has led on a number of industry/university collaborative initiatives, has extensive experience of international collaboration and considerable experience dealing with IP, hightech start-ups and investment deals. Diana is the University appointed Director on Curve Therapeutics Limited, SETsquared Limited, Southampton Asset Management Limited, ECS Partners Ltd, Z21 Limited. She is also a Trustee for charity Sail Training International which enables her to combine her passion for sailing with her business and legal expertise to support opportunities for young people to build confidence, broaden their horizons and international friendship through sail training.
Alisdair Aldous
My KE career began before I started working in HE, when I worked as a consultant in what is now called place-making, as my role involved facilitating productive collaborations between developers, councils, policy-makers, creative professionals, local businesses and communities (the classic quadruple helix!). From this role I progressed into HE, where I initially worked in a planning and policy function, but then moved on to increasingly senior roles working at the interface between research and innovation funding, and broader KE activities. I am now Director of KE at UAL, where I lead on strategic co-ordination across our full KE portfolio, manage our institutional HEIF allocation, jointly manage our research and innovation funding support service, and lead on all KE-related institutional reporting.
Paul Fairburn
Having spent over ten years working in the healthcare/pharmaceutical sector, over the last fifteen years I have gained significant KE experience across multiple roles in Higher Education. Having initially joined Coventry University with a focus on health technology commercialisation and industry partnerships, I took on responsibility for development of institutional KE strategy, and delivery against corporate targets in 2010.
Transitioning through organisational change to Director of Enterprise & Innovation, I led an expanded international business development and sales team (including staff in Brussels, Brazil, Dubai, and South East Asia) and focused on developing strategic partnerships across multiple sectors, and securing investment and funding for collaborative research, consultancy, and skills projects. Today, I am responsible for the Innovation Ecosystem (IE) at Coventry University, and a team of c60 people. Leading the institutional response to the KEF and KE Concordat, the IE brings the Intellectual Property (IP), KE, Industrial Innovation, and SME Support Programmes together under one area.
Prof Simon Haslam, CDir
I have the privilege of working internationally and with a wide variety of organisations. My focus is helping leaders and managers develop their leadership and strategic thinking capability. I’ve been doing this for over two decades (time flies, etc). Some of my consulting clients have been focused KE organisations and others have had KE as part of their remit or business model. I’ve very much appreciated the opportunity to learn from these clients.
Lizelle Gouverneur
Lizelle is the Head of Business Development at The Pirbright Institute. She manages the Knowledge Exchange and Commercialisation team at Pirbright, managing the identification, protection, and exploitation of intellectual property, drafting and negotiating research contracts, and supporting engagement with industrial partners.
Sahar Mansoori Zangir
I am a Business Growth expert working to bring together industry and academia. I currently serve as a Business Development Manager and Lecturer in Innovation at Kingston University. Through the last 10 years of working in UK HEIs, I have worked with many start-ups, scale-ups, SMEs on growth initiatives that have fed back into University support programmes for industry. I have also contributed to the design and delivery of KE strategies across different disciplines and schools.
Alongside this role, I have been heavily involved in Kingston University’s Knowledge Exchange Framework and Knowledge Exchange Concordat submissions. I have also acted as a Knowledge Exchange Concordat Evaluator in its development year.