The university was recently listed as one of the UK’s top 10 KTP providers – securing eighth place for Higher Education Institutions across the country and the centre will ensure business partners, KTP Associates and UWS staff have exclusive access to an in-house specialist team to support their KTP activity.
This follows a period of tremendous growth for UWS’ KTP offering in which the University’s KTP portfolio has increased by 250 per cent in the past 12 months, placing UWS as the fastest growing provider of these partnerships in Scotland.
UWS currently boasts 24 KTPs with businesses across the UK with a value amounting to £5 million.
Professor Craig Mahoney, UWS principal and vice-chancellor, said: “To be Scotland’s fastest growing provider of KTPs and to be placed within the top 10 Higher Education Institutions providing KTPs across the whole of the UK is a significant achievement.”
“I am proud that we are the first university in Scotland to create a dedicated KTP Centre and am confident that this development will enable us to drive our KTP offering further forward. Our KTP success clearly demonstrates that our research activities have direct relevance to, and applicability in, world-leading industries and businesses.
“Our KTP success clearly demonstrates that our research activities have direct relevance to, and applicability in, world-leading industries and businesses, that our academic experts are successful in solving real-world problems and that our university is having major positive impacts on national and global challenges, in particular those associated with health, society and sustainability.”
Stuart McKay, UWS KTP Manager, said: “Here at UWS our motto is ‘Dreaming, Believing, Achieving’ and this is most certainly what we have done with our KTP portfolio. Through the KTP scheme we are able to help businesses to innovate and grow by linking them with a highly-skilled graduate and academic team to work on a specific project to create real results.
“We have had a number of success stories so far and we are keen to further develop this and work with more and more businesses across the UK.”
KTPs are a flagship programme from Innovate UK and UKRI. In Scotland, KTP also receives support from the Scottish Funding Council.
A three-way partnership between a business, an academic institution and a graduate, the academic institution employs a recently-qualified graduate, known as a ‘KTP Associate’ who works full-time at the company under the guidance of an experienced academic team; bringing new skills and knowledge to the business and delivering real impact on a strategically important project.
Lasting between 12 and 36 months depending on the project, UWS has worked with businesses of all sizes, helping companies to innovate and grow through the scheme.
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