The UK government’s minister for universities, science, research and innovation, Jo Johnson, (pictured) has proposed a knowledge sharing benchmark to help assess the commercialisation performance of UK institutions.
The plans, dubbed the Knowledge Excellence Framework (KEF), seek to further improve revenues from the UK’s commercialisation sector, which was worth £4.2bn ($5.6bn) in 2015-2016, according to the Higher Education Business and Community Interaction Survey.
Johnson’s policy will be considered by Research England, part of the UK Research and Innovation agency. Research England is headed by David Sweeney, director of research and knowledge exchange at the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), where Johnson had been speaking at the annual conference.
The minister warned universities could be penalised for failing to meet the KEF, potentially losing access to the government’s grant program for knowledge sharing, Higher Education Innovations Funding (HEIF).
An extra £18m ($24m) will be allocated for the Rutherford Fund,…
