To ask the Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment for his assessment of (i) Knowledge Transfer Partnerships between Further and Higher Education institutions and local companies; and (ii) how budget cuts are likely to impact on the ability of institutions to deliver the Partnerships.

(i) Since it began in Northern Ireland about 40 years ago some 600 Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) have been completed with local companies which have provided numerous benefits to individuals, companies and academic institutions and to the Northern Ireland economy overall.

Northern Ireland as a region is highly successful in terms of KTP Programme participation. Queen’s University Belfast has the highest number of current active partnerships in the UK at 42 and Ulster University is currently ranked sixth with 21 active partnerships.

The KTP Programme is an excellent example of a scheme which fosters collaboration and knowledge transfer and delivers significant impacts to the Northern Ireland economy. A recent study1 commissioned by Innovate UK estimated programme Return on Investment of £8 of net additional GVA generated for every £1 of KTP grant funding invested by sponsors.

(ii) The higher and further education sectors in Northern Ireland fall under the remit of the Department for Employment and Learning (DEL) which provides funding support in relation to teaching, research and knowledge exchange.

In terms of supporting the Higher Education sector’s continuing engagement with businesses and the wider community, DEL currently provides around £4 million per annum of underpinning, core funding through its Northern Ireland Higher Education Innovation Fund (NI HEIF).

Just one of the roles of NI HEIF is to support the universities’ innovation and enterprise offices to provide practical assistance to academics and businesses to enable the development of high quality, competitive, proposals to KTP and to other important innovation initiatives.

With respect to KTP, both Queen’s University and Ulster University have been highly successful. Queen’s consistently tops the UK league table with respect to KTP awards and Ulster has recently moved up to sixth position out of 106 registered knowledge providers in the UK.

NI HEIF is complemented by DEL’s Connected programme, an initiative supporting universities and further education colleges to work together for the benefit of local businesses. Currently funded at £1.1 million per annum, Connected also plays an important role in the promotion of KTPs and has been instrumental in encouraging the first college based projects.

Despite the wider cuts to the Higher Education budget, DEL has been able to protect NI HEIF and Connected, in recognition of both programmes’ particular relevance and importance to the local economy. By taking the strategic decision to do this, DEL is safeguarding the ability of the universities to deliver KTPs and other business-facing activities.

On the Further Education side, DEL has increased the budget for the Employer Support Programme from £2 million in 2014/15 to £3.2 million in 2015/16 to implement and deliver a new strand of the programme, Skills Focus. This reaffirms the commitment of the Department to deliver training to businesses, enabling them to engage in innovation, upskill the workforce and gain qualifications.

Skills Focus, which was introduced in April 2015, aims to support, promote and facilitate collaborative working between business and FE colleges, in order to provide tailored skills provision to small and medium sized enterprises with fewer than 250 employees. The purpose of Skills Focus is to meet business needs by increasing the skills levels and employability of the existing workforce to qualifications at level 2 and above.

The other strand of the Employer Support Programme, InnovateUs, is designed to encourage and promote opportunities for small businesses and FE colleges to work together. In particular, the focus of the programme is to enable small businesses, with fewer than 50 employees, to acquire the skills necessary to engage in innovation activities and research and development across the business and underpin the development of these skills; promote progression in this area; and enable businesses to undertake additional and further forms of innovation, which will contribute to their growth and development, as well as increasing Further Education’s role in economic development.

As with the Higher Education sector, this investment in the Further Education sector by DEL will serve to underpin the environment in which programmes such as KTP can flourish.

KTP Programme - The Impacts of KTP Associates and Knowledge Base on the UK Economy, WECD July 2015