The University of Essex is now 12th in the UK for driving growth, connecting with partners and sharing its expertise to benefit the economy and wider society according to the Government’s latest analysis.
The new Knowledge Exchange Framework was released this week and shows Essex moving up to 12th overall in the UK, out of 156 institutions. Essex is 3rd in the sector for ‘working with the public and third sector’, 22nd for ‘public and community engagement’, 34th for ‘working with business’ and 35th for ‘local growth and regeneration’.
Deputy Director (Enterprise) Rob Walker said: “The University of Essex is building a powerful innovation ecosystem that translates research excellence into commercial opportunity, attracting investment, supporting spinouts, and delivering economic impact at scale.
“Building strong partnerships with business has always been at the heart of our mission and purpose, now with the renewed focus on economic growth within UK Research & Innovation and the Government, Essex is incredibly well placed to build on the achievements outlined in the Knowledge Exchange Framework.
“Our pilot year for the Innovation Fund 2025 for the region received unprecedented demand and we are excited to be launching Innovation Fund 2.0 soon – watch this space.”
Growing portfolio of partnerships with business
The University’s extensive Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP) portfolio is now worth over £13 million and made a substantial contribution to the overall performance alongside multiple contract research projects within the School of Life Sciences and the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering.
Essex research projects span an impressive range of critical cross-cutting themes - from advancing telecommunications and utilising robots in agriculture to developing novel techniques for creating blood substitutes and increasing plant productivity.
At the same time regional partnerships are a strong strategic focus, with innovation support for businesses being delivered in partnership with Freeport East, Essex County Council and other local councils. This has led to over 30 local SMEs being supported so far, with several going on to secure further funding from Innovate UK.
This is leading to the development of new products and services, and ongoing investment in R&D demonstrate that these programmes are delivering genuine regional economic impact.
Delivering benefits for business and our students
Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Chris Greer said: “The University of Essex is now a leader in the university sector for connecting our researchers to business, charities and the public sector.
“This means our students work with academics who are putting their research into action developing new products and improving services.
“At the same time businesses, councils and other organisations benefit from linking up with research talent to take on the latest challenges they face and take advantage of new opportunities.”
Essex investment and strategies for commercialisation and IP development are already yielding significant gains in performance and will hopefully help improve Essex’s performance in this area in the coming years.
The latest example includes University of Essex spin-out, Versatile RobotX, which has secured more than £1 million in investment and innovation funding to accelerate the commercialisation of its intelligent agricultural robots, designed to ease labour shortages, boost productivity and enhance food security. The £1 million-plus package combined investment from British Design Fund (BDF), with support from Innovate UK Growth Catalyst – Investor Partnerships Round 2 and additional Defra Farming Innovation Programme grants.
Second in benchmark group for knowledge exchange
The Knowledge Exchange Framework showed the University of Essex is growing in strength at a national level, and in comparison to similar universities. Essex is 2nd overall in its benchmark group of 19 research intensive universities, known as Cluster X, and has gone up one quintile for ‘public and community engagement’ and ‘IP and Commercialisation’. This means Essex met or exceeded the Cluster X benchmark for all quintiles.
In Cluster X, Essex is ranked 1st for ‘working with the public and third sector’, 2nd for ‘public and community engagement’, 3rd for ‘continuing professional development and graduate start ups’, and 4th for ‘local growth and regeneration’.
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