Why is this National Indicator important?
In terms of scale and quality, Scotland's university-based research is amongst the best in the world. However, the level of business research and development lags behind that of most developed countries. If the Government is to realise its ambitions for delivering significantly higher and sustainable levels of economic growth, then more of the high quality knowledge being created in Scotland's universities needs to be transferred into the Scottish economy.
This should lead to both improved economic output from existing businesses and the creation of new, high value businesses with the capacity to grow and energise Scotland's GDP performance. There is a similar requirement for the transfer of research outputs with the potential to deliver social or cultural gains for Scotland.
What will influence this National Indicator?
Before we can transfer knowledge we must, of course, create it. Only then can we look to ensure it offers positive economic, social or cultural impact. Transferring knowledge is complex and can take many forms - including bringing high-potential graduates into the workforce, the establishment of new spin-out companies and the effective collaboration between universities and businesses or other organisations.
Much of the knowledge created in Scotland inevitably becomes global property, just as Scotland's businesses exploit knowledge that has been created all over the world. However, the process of transferring Scottish-generated knowledge is supported by a range of different programmes and institutions (for example the Intermediary Technology Institutes) and can be incentivised through means such as the Knowledge Transfer Grants provided by the Scottish Funding Council.
What is the Government's role?
The enterprise networks and the Scottish Funding Council are tasked with working to improve the transmission and exploitation of new knowledge. It is then for these bodies to employ a wide variety of instruments to create an environment in which there is a supply of valuable knowledge being created in Scotland's universities alongside an increase in demand for that knowledge from Scottish businesses who are increasingly able to absorb and exploit such knowledge to improve their own performance and that of the Scottish economy.
How is Scotland performing?
At present, there is no single measure for Knowledge Transfer (KT) which can be used to monitor this national indicator. Currently, the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) allocates its Knowledge Transfer Grant (KTG) based on activity data collected from Scottish Higher Education Institutions each year. The Scottish Government is working in consultation with the Scottish Funding Council to develop a KT measure based on this activity data. It is anticipated that a suitable indicator will be developed over the summer of 2008, with a view to finalising this before the SFC collects its annual KTG metrics in September 2008.
Methodology
For more information see 2007 Spending Review Technical Note
For information on general methodological approach, please click here.
Who are our supporting delivery partners?
Business Organisations
Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE)
Scottish Enterprise
Scottish Funding Council
Universities
Related Strategic Objectives
Smarter
Healthier
Wealthier and Fairer