Knowledge Transfer Partnerships – Bucks New University and the Oasis Partnership.
Great news – Oasis has been been successful in our application to Innovate UK and the Knowledge Transfer Partnership. It’s been a hard slog, not unlike writing a dissertation, but we got there and I am super excited by this new opportunity for Oasis.
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) help organisations innovate for growth. They do this by connecting businesses that have innovation ideas with the expertise to help deliver them. KTP’s are true partnerships, designed to benefit all three partners. The KTP project will last for 24 months, starting this autumn.
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships is a UK-wide programme, funded through Innovate UK, that has been helping businesses for the past 40 years to improve their competitiveness and productivity through the better use of knowledge, technology and skills that reside within the UK Knowledge Base.
A Knowledge Transfer Partnership serves to meet a core strategic need and to identify innovative solutions to help that business grow. KTP often delivers significant increased profitability for business partners as a direct result of the partnership through improved quality and operations, increased sales and access to new markets. Social enterprises see improved results, too.
Bucks New Uni KTP department is collaborating with the Oasis Partnership to help create positive impact and drive innovation helping our charity to improve management practices and help develop income generation models, reducing the reliance on funding from grants and commissioned services in order to make our Charity more financially stable with a successful and sustainable future ahead, helping us drive innovation, increase productivity and improve business performance.
Innovation is the lifeblood of any business. Oasis has a lot of innovative ideas that could help support vulnerable and disadvantaged people living in our communities and also help generate an unrestricted income to cover our core costs and help us innovate and develop new services. Collaborating with the Knowledge Transfer Partnership and Bucks New Uni will give Oasis access to the expertise, knowledge and support needed to get us to where we need to be as a leading charity working across Buckinghamshire. . Oasis embraces agility and change as part of our everyday actions. We can try things, some may be successful, some not, but we can experiment quickly and fail quickly when necessary and move on having learned lessons from each experiment, whilst also gaining evidence for funding applications.
Our new project will be managed by a KTP Associate – an extremely talented graduate or post graduate. The KTP programme is complemented by the Management KTP Programme (mKTP), focused on helping businesses build resilience, adaptability and growth by changing culture or expanding management capability.
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships will help Oasis:
– Embed expertise, generate new knowledge, expand capability and foster a culture of innovation
– Drive competitive advantage through accelerated innovation and the possibility of creating Intellectual Property
– Gain privileged and cost-effective access to the UK’s world-class knowledge base and resources
– Increase revenue/profits through access to new markets, new product development, increased productivity and better processes
– Benefit from the strategic input of a highly experienced Knowledge Transfer Advisor.
The cost of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership project is shared by Oasis and by Innovate UK and other government supporters who contribute 67% of the project cost via a grant to Bucks New Uni KTP dept. Oasis will make a cash contribution for the remaining project costs.
Massive thanks to The Clare Foundation for sponsoring half of our annual cost, helping us to become sustainable with a positive future ahead. We are seeking the remaining funds, now that we have been successful in our KTP application, which in turn will show a return on investment over time as we develop new models of practice and generate income to support our aims and objectives.
This new KTP Project will give us the academic support we need as well as providing :
• Access to the exceptional resources of the knowledge base or research organisation
• A dedicated team to deliver a strategic project
• Expert academic input bringing a breadth and depth of knowledge to support the Associate and the project
• The consultancy and guidance of a highly experienced Knowledge Transfer Adviser
• The partnership introduces new capabilities and embeds knowledge
• The wider support and opportunities offered by links to Knowledge Transfer Network.
The Knowledge Transfer Partnership project gives Oasis an opportunity to share our learning with the wider 3rd sector within Buckinghamshire, and to develop future collaborations and ways of measuring and reporting the social return on investment.
