“At KTH 2021 has been a year dominated by two things:
1) Management and further development of the business in the wake of the pandemic.
2) Investment of substantial time for reflection through evaluations, assessments, reviews and investigations in a number of perspectives of our operations.

Strategic partnerships has been a common theme for several of our reviews. We supplemented our reviews by participating in UIIN's Accelerator Program Strategic Partnerships during spring 2021. This provided valuable insights into how our work is doing internationally as well as inspiration for continued work. The Accelerator program provided a highly appreciated workshop structure and a most valuable survey that provided rich data on free text to further utilize our development Through the program, a core team was created that continued after the program ended. This team has proven to be an appreciated "think-tank" at various management levels. #KTHTogetherForImpact.”

“In the build-up of our new in-house innovation unit, Life Science Growth House, UiO participated in the Entrepreneurial Universities program. Through the tutoring from UIIN, their survey of UiO and by engaging with fellow participants we acquired new insight into our university which we brought with us to build a robust foundation for the Growth House. As a continuation this year UiO engaged UIIN to run a bespoke Strategic Partnership program to again learn, map out and implement best practice for industrial collaborations at our university.”

"The Strategic Partnerships Accelerator Program provided an excellent springboard for bringing together a wide group of internal stakeholders to assess our current approaches and develop a roadmap for tackling challenges. The program helped us to develop a common and agreed narrative that we can use to tackle the next steps in our development".

“The RVC team applied for the first-year cohort as it seemed a great opportunity for a team of KE staff to undertake shared in-depth training and analysis of our potential in knowledge exchange. The mix of self-directed learning, guided teamwork, and individual webinar sessions was a great combination, and enabled us to explore our current working methods and how to meet our future ambitions. As a smaller specialist institution, we really benefitted from UIIN’s support and involvement to really understand the challenges and opportunities in strategic partnerships for the RVC. It was perfect timing for us as UK higher education institutions adapt to changes in reporting in relation to KE, through the Knowledge Exchange Concordat and the Knowledge Exchange Framework, and learning from our peers and partners was a great way to develop this understanding.

We have primarily used the outputs from the programme as part of our plans for future work, and specifically towards the Action Plan submitted as part of the Knowledge Exchange Concordat. Longer term, it has enabled us to understand priorities of our internal stakeholders' drivers, which will result in better support of RVC’s strategic partnerships. It is always difficult in implementing new ways of working, but this programme has provided us with understanding of the challenges and opportunities within our culture, and the tools to enable us to support the RVC better in its knowledge exchange ambitions.”