The Physiological Society's report on KE spotlights on the specific contributions to knowledge exchange made by physiology. It is an insightful report, revealing a perhaps surprising level of KE from this particular disciplinary base but also highlighting opportunities for greater engagement and how that might be achieved. What can KE practitioners learn from these deep-dives and why are they important to our understanding of UK knowledge exchange?
PraxisAuril’s training and development programme is skills-based; focusing on the tools, techniques and knowledge that are required for the day-to-day job of engagement, collaboration and commercialisation. Our delegates come from a mix of university types, with mixed professional backgrounds, and a mixed-bag of roles; some focus on a disciplinary group (e.g. Head of Life Sciences) and others are more skill-specific post (e.g. IP portfolio manager). This mix of experience and approaches is intentional and encouraged – people learn from each other, pick-up tips from analogous approaches in different contexts but are also inspired by seeing things done differently to address new challenges.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen increased demand for more focus on specific disciplinary areas and industry sectors. At PraxisAuril, the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences special interest group (AHSS SIG) has led discussions and training about the need for a different approach to KE partly because of the lack of tangible IP arising from those disciplines. Another example is the NERC’s KE Fellowship programme, which is aimed at researchers but also focuses on a disciplinary group to explore the possibilities for KE with external organisations. More recently, we have the ASPECT CCF focusing on social science commercialisation, and the Research England funded National Centre for Academic and Cultural Exchange (NCACE) to facilitate and support capacity for KE between Higher Education and the arts and cultural sector.
KE demand and supply: raising awareness, increasing potential
Perhaps the most extensive ‘dive’ to date was the ‘Bond Review’ (2018) which examined KE in mathematical sciences responding, in part, to a lack of recognition for maths in R&D discussions and policy (see also the recent special edition on KE in Mathematics Today). The Bond Review demonstrated not only the potential for maths KE but also how much activity was already taking place. This addresses the KE ‘demand and supply’ conundrum: how do potential collaborators identify the academic base that will help them to innovate? How do they stretch their understanding of a problem by looking beyond their usual frame of reference? On the flip side, how does a particular discipline demonstrate that it is relevant to particular industrial challenges of the kind we see identified through industrial strategies and funding programmes? This is important because without demonstrating relevance it’s hard to attract or win funding. Research brokers, or translators, can help here and one of the Review’s recommendations was that “Universities should have dedicated teams in mathematics departments to act as facilitators and KE translators” , recognising the need for specific KE skills combined with the ability to bridge between research and application.
The latest deep-dive from the Physiological Society also aims to understand the contribution of a particular disciplinary area, identify KE modes and models, and assess the potential for doing more. Some challenges are generic to KE – lack of time being one much quoted impediment – but some are specific to physiology, for example relating to lack of understanding of the applicable field of impact outside the research base. The benefit of having a professional society leading this kind of report is that outputs based on sector data can be drilled down and related to academic activity in a way that's not possible on a national level (we do not want a disciplinary level KEF). It also opens up conversations about academic incentives for knowlege exchange. It is a model that other societies may well follow, giving us a more rounded picture of UK strengths, weaknesess and opportunities for KE than traditional output metrics.
"It is to the credit of this project’s Advisory Group, the academics across the country who provided case studies and the knowledge exchange professionals in higher education institutions across the UK who contributed institutional data, that we have been able to reflect the breadth of physiology and provide a snapshot of the UK’s physiology-related knowledge exchange." (Foreword, Physiology and Knowledge Exchange)
Identifying new modes of KE pratice
For PraxisAuril, working with a professional body such as the Physiological Society is rewarding because of the focus it brings to conversations about KE skills and practice. Deep dive activity shows those skills applied in a particular context but also reveals where new approaches to training might be needed. Sometimes this will be about involving new stakeholders in existing courses, or drawing on particular case studies, so that the context for application is clear (including why a particular approach may or may not work). It might also extend to creating a new training programme as was the case with the AHSS SIG. It’s an opportunity, too, for PraxisAuril members to think about a particular disciplinary space, understand academic motivations for KE, and reflect on growing engagement in and from their own institutions or in partnership with others where there is complimentary expertise (the approach taken by some CCF projects). Above all it makes our collective understanding of KE more sophisticated, which can only help to improve the way we approach this collaborative endeavour and achieve more impact for everyone involved.
The report 'Translating Knowledge and Research into Impact: Physiology and Knowlege Exchange' can be downloaded from the Physiological Society website https://www.physoc.org/policy/knowledge-exchange/.
Tamsin Mann
PraxisAuril