Building effective collaborations toolkit

There are several tools and techniques that can be developed and used to find new partners, build relationships and deliver collaborative projects.

Academic collaboration with external partners (business, public sector, charities) is becoming increasingly important.

• Initiatives such as the Industrial Strategy and the Global Challenges Research Fund have changed the research funding landscape and provide greater emphasis on challenge or problem-led research.
• Accessing these vast streams of research funding requires an interdisciplinary approach, involving both academic and non-academic partners.
• Within teaching, students want access to external partners so they can be exposed to real-world applications and because they open up opportunities for projects, placements and even recruitment.
• Working with external partners can give access to industrial expertise, data and provide the opportunity to work on real-world projects.
• The Research Excellence Framework has increased emphasis on economic and societal impact.

Whether you are an early career or more established academic, the KTC has developed tools and techniques which can help you find and build new collaborations, as well as strengthening existing partnerships.

The following diagram is a summary of this toolkit and we can work through this with you, either through our training workshops or via 1:1 mentoring.

Please contact your Business Partner to discuss this further.