Knowledge Transfer Partnerships

What is a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP)?

A KTP provides academics with the opportunity to apply their research to real-world projects and offers businesses access to LJMU’s knowledge, technology and skills to transform their competitiveness, productivity and performance.

The costs of KTP projects are substantially underwritten by Innovate UK with company contribution to the overall programme dependant on its size. A high-calibre graduate (the Associate) is recruited to manage the day-to-day delivery of the project supported by an academic supervisor to ensure effective knowledge transfer and an industrial supervisor from within the company to maximise the project’s impact. The results could be development of new products, services or a strategic change to promote growth.

With application success rates of over 85% KTPs are a great way to generate income and impact for the University. You can experience the excitement of working with a business on commercial challenges while shaping the practical application of your research, develop business-related teaching materials, high quality research papers and contribute to the Research Excellence Framework (REF).

Download the KTP brochure (PDF 1.96mb)

KTPs and LJMU

LJMU is well known for its KTP projects and we have been given numerous awards for our work. To find out more please read the following case studies:

Key facts

Strategic to the growth and development of an established company KTPs must demonstrate “impact, innovation, challenge and cohesiveness” for all three parties.

  • Projects are part-funded by Innovate UK.
  • For a SME, 67% of the costs are funded for larger businesses, 50% of the costs are funded.
  • KTPs can run from 12-36 months, on average they run for around 24 months.
  • In an area where the company lacks sufficient expertise to be able to complete the work independently cannot be consultancy or replace ‘off the shelf’ solutions.
  • Sufficiently challenging for the Academic member of staff and for the full-time graduate with a clear need for university involvement needs to be made.
  • Realistic but ambitious within the time scale.

The Company must be:

  • Financially secure enough to support a project.
  • Large enough to support fully the Associate and exploit the project outcomes.

The Application Process:

  • There are 6 open calls per year and results are known approximately two months following application
  • The proposal development process takes around 3-6 months with the university and company collaborating on the application, guided by the Regional Knowledge Transfer Adviser.
  • If approved, Innovate UK issues a Grant Offer letter, from the date of which 9 months is allowed for recruitment of the Associate. The Associate will be employed by the university, but is based at the company and subject to company hours and holidays.
  • The Academic supervisor is expected to spend half a day a week at the company premises working on the project.

To find out more about KTPs at LJMU please contact Estelle Hargraves, telephone: 0151 231 8056, Email: e.s.hargraves@ljmu.ac.uk  

To find out more about KTPs visit the Knowledge Transfer Partnership website.