Jump in KTP returns

Dr Debbie Buckley-Golder, KTP programme director says: “Knowledge Transfer Partnerships is among the world’s leading initiatives, using the knowledge and skills of high calibre graduate associates and their academic supervisors to inject fresh ideas into UK businesses. Figures from the 06/07 annual report demonstrate that KTP is going from strength to strength.” KTP is a programme helping businesses to improve their competitiveness and productivity through the better use of knowledge, technology and skills that reside within the UK knowledge base. Business performance outputs vary considerably from case to case, given the rich variety of projects, but latest information revealed in the KTP annual report – now released – shows that, on average, the business benefits that can be expected from a single KTP project include an increase of over £227,000 in annual profits before tax, creation of three genuine new jobs and an increase in the skills of existing staff. Buckley-Golder added: “The programme delivered well over 1000 partnerships across the country during the year, providing British firms with opportunities to break into new technologies and new markets as well as new process and production methodologies. As a result of the government money committed during 2006/07, UK companies stand to benefit from an overall increase in annual profit before tax of some £100m, over 1400 new jobs created and over 6200 company staff trained.” In terms of ROI, this means that for every £1million of Government investment in KTPs, the benefits achieved by UK businesses amount to £2.97 million increase in annual profits before tax, creating 43 genuine new jobs and 190 company staff trained. The total number of KTPs increased by around 5% from 1002 to 1048 during the course of 2006/07, and the total number of Associate places from 1114 to 1157. This represents an overall increase in Partnership numbers of over 22% since the steady-state period of 2003 to 2005. During the 2006/07 financial year, £114m was committed to new KTP Partnerships in the form of grant support and company contributions. The distribution of this was mainly to SMEs – those with less than 249 employees – with this accounting for 80% of the investment. The major categories of technology and knowledge involved continue to be information technology (25%), engineering (19%), management science (15%) and science (12%). Knowledge Transfer Partnerships is a UK-wide programme funded by 17 Government organisations and during 2007, will be led by the Technology Strategy B