Businesses

Drive Innovation and Growth with a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP)

Supported by Innovate UK, KTPs connect businesses, organisations and certain public bodies with Royal Holloway’s academic expertise to solve real-world challenges and unlock transformative growth.

As a top 25 UK research university (REF 2021), RHUL offers access to world-class knowledge and cutting-edge facilities. Our academic experts will work with you to develop innovative solutions to boost competitiveness, deliver measurable impact, while the KTP office will support you with scoping, application success, recruitment and project support until its conclusion.

Management KTPs (mKTP)

The main focus of an mKTP is to trigger a cultural change within the organisation and to enable transformational improvements by identifying strategic, management-based initiatives that help to increase business resilience, financial performance and long-term sustainability using the cutting-edge expertise of the academic team at RHUl’s Business School. Contact the KTP office for more information. Find out more about mKTPs here.

Accelerated Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (AKT)

Inspired by the highly successful KTP programme, these smaller scale, 2–4-month projects are designed to offer a rapid evaluation or development of an innovation concept or an idea, that has a potential for significant impact to the business or organisation partner. These short-term collaborations between Royal Holloway and a business partner will deliver a rapid, targeted intervention to enable business growth, resilience and sustainability. Innovate UK will contribute up to £35 000 towards project costs, while the business is expected to make a cash contribution of 10%. More information and call dates can be found here.

Frequently asked questions for businesses

How much does a KTP cost?

- The project cost and relevant grant funding will depend on the type of the company or organisation you are. SMEs qualify for a 67% grant funding rate, while large companies or organisations, as well as public-sector qualify for 50% rate, and 75%* grant funding rate for Third-Sector partners.

What is the KTP eligibility criteria?

The company or organisation must:

Be a UK registered business, a not-for-profit organisation or an eligible public sector organisation with 2 or more full-time equivalent employees

Be able to provide evidence of your ability to financially support your financial contribution towards the project costs and show that you can financially support the commercialisation of the project output once the KTP concludes

- Be able to host the KTP Associate and provide them with supervisory support.

What types of KTP projects are being funded?

The type of projects suitable for a KTP may include:

Refining existing products or designing new products.
Opening new markets for new or existing products.
Improving business, marketing or manufacturing systems.
Improving efficiency and cutting costs

Will I be the recipient of the grant?

The university will remain the grant holder and the company will be invoiced monthly in arears for their contribution.

What support will I get from the University?

Our KTP office, alongside a KTP Advisor will help you develop the KTP application form and once the project has been approved by the funder, the KTP office, alongside the academic will help you to recruit a suitably qualified associate to work on this project.

You will receive support throughout every stage of the KTP process, from pre-application stages, throughout the life of the project and until the submission of the Final Report at the end of the KTP.