Knowledge Exchange Framework: City scores highly in the 2023 results

City, University of London performed well in the third edition of the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF), which was released on Wednesday 27 September 2023. The KEF is an assessment of how English universities serve the economy and society for the benefit of the public, business, and the community.

The commercialisation of the University’s intellectual property (IP) was its highest performing metric and was judged to have a ‘very high engagement’, putting City in the top 20 per cent of universities.

This was calculated by looking at the external investment of spinout firms that originated at City, their turnover, and the amount of IP and licensing income arising from City’s research.

The results found that spinout companies linked to City – of which there were 10 – made an overall annual turnover of £1.6 million. This placed City above universities such as the University of Warwick and the University of Nottingham.

City also ranked highly on metrics related to working with business, research partnerships, continued professional development (CPD) and graduate startups.

City’s very good performance in the KEF shows that its academics engage in a wide range of interactions with business, practice and the professions.

The latest KEF results allow year-by-year comparison for the first time, highlighting areas of improvement. Reflecting City’s engagement to producing world-class research, since last year, City’s research partnerships moved up a quintile from medium engagement to high engagement. Furthermore, City’s public and community engagement saw an increase from low to medium engagement.

Speaking about City’s strong performance in the KEF3 results, Professor Miguel Mera, Vice President (Research) said:

The KEF is a key element of Research England’s benchmarking and it celebrates the many different ways universities in England interact with the wider world.

I am very pleased that we are performing well when compared to our peer-group and that we have also improved in key areas including research partnerships and public and community engagement.

Professor Dame Jessica Corner, Executive Chair of Research England, said:

Across the breadth of higher education, institutions make rich and diverse contributions to the economy and society through their knowledge exchange activities.

Research England, is part of the public body UK Research & Innovation (UKRI), which funds higher education providers to support them in carrying out research and knowledge exchange.

No overall ranking is provided. Instead, universities are grouped into clusters and compared against similar institutions. For City, this cluster was of higher education institutions with broad discipline portfolios generating excellent research across all disciplines and includes competitors such as the University of Brighton, Goldsmiths, University of London and the Open University.

The majority of the data that form the metrics of the KEF continues to come from the Higher Education Business and Community Interaction survey. Further data is drawn from Innovate UK and the academic publisher Elsevier.