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Research England recently published its third annual Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) dashboard. The KEF seeks to facilitate access to knowledge and expertise in universities, and assess how they work with partners, including businesses, the public sector and communities, to benefit the economy and society. 

Sussex is assessed in a cluster with other large, research-intensive, broad discipline universities, and we have continued to consolidate our position relative to our comparators since the previous KEF dashboard was released last year. 

Compared to our cluster, Sussex has maintained our very high level of engagement and improved our position in:

• research partnerships
• working with business
• working with the public and third sector
• IP (intellectual property) and commercialisation.

The University has maintained its position with regards to:

• continuing professional development
• graduate start-ups
• local growth and regeneration
• public and community engagement.

Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research and Enterprise), Professor Keith Jones said: “Thanks to the focus on knowledge exchange and working in partnership stemming from our Sussex 2025 strategy, we have an increasingly entrepreneurial and externally engaged academic culture at the University, which is reflected in the improved and consolidated scores in this year’s KEF. I’m sure our continued focus in this area will show further progress in future years.”

Comparing across the sector

Here are some key highlights for Sussex when we compare ourselves across the sector (it must be noted that cross-sector comparisons compare very different higher education providers):

• top 10% nationally for performance on contract research for the public and third sector
• top 10% for external investment in our spin-outs
• top 20% for our contract research income from small and medium sized enterprises and for turnover in our spin-outs
• top 30% for our income from companies for collaborative research
• top 30% for co-authorship with non-academic partners as a proportion of total outputs
• top 40% nationally for licensing and other IP income as a proportion of research income.

Knowledge exchange at Sussex

Knowledge exchange is a key area of focus for the University, and we have an established team of dedicated professionals ably supporting development in KE. Increased focus on KE in recent years has resulted in almost doubling income from business collaboration, establishing more spin-outs, doubling patent awards and software licences, doubling turnover of graduate and staff business, and attracting external investment to these businesses of over £23m. 

If you would like any further information about our results in this year’s KEF, or how KE works here at Sussex, please contact Debbie Keeling, Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor for Knowledge Exchange, at d.i.keeling@sussex.ac.uk.