Working with industry/ building employability

The university wanted to build the capability and confidence of their early career researchers, so they were better equipped to work with industry and other organisations, and were more employable.

We delivered a training course, over four half days, where we introduced participants to the range of mix of industries and their business models and R&D processes, showed them how to analyse the business landscape and the businesses within it, and how to identify businesses that might be interested in their capability and know-how. We provided them with practical steps to building their own network, to access the people and organisations they wanted to work with.

In the second half of the programme, we focused on developing the skills necessary to identify, develop, and pitch a compelling opportunity to a company. We presented examples of excellent pitches and then had each attendee build and practice the delivery of a compelling pitch based on their own capability, experience or research.

Finally, we had a senior academic from the university present their case history of working with industry, showing how they built contacts, delivered small projects that won the trust of their customers and contacts, and then went on to have successful careers, based on these relationships and the work they did in partnership with them.

On completion of the programme, participants had a better understanding of the business landscape and how commercial organisations operated, had learned how to build their personal networks into the business world and had seen how people who started out with the same skills and capabilities had build successful careers. 

Next case study: Building the KTP pipeline