Knowledge and Technology Transfer from Universities to Industries: a Case Study Approach from the Built Environment Field

Enabling knowledge societies and knowledge based
economies is a key policy in the UK. Knowledge
transfer partnership (KTP) scheme initiated by the
Technology Strategy Board is a pathway for collaboration
and partnerships between higher education
institutions and companies to transfer innovative
knowledge based solutions from universities to businesses
in order to equip them with the leading edge
knowledge and technology infrastructure for sustainable
long term competitive advantages in both national
and international market. The paper explains
a KTP project between the University of Salford
and John McCall Architects (JMA) in Liverpool in
the UK that aimed to identify, map and re-engineer
JMA’s strategic and operational change processes
through lean thinking and the implementation of
building information modelling (BIM), which is a
foundational tool for implementing an efficient process
and invariably leads to lean-orientated, team based
approach to design and construction by enabling
the intelligent interrogation of designs; provide a
quicker and cheaper design production; better coordination
of documentation; more effective change
control; less repetition of processes; a better quality
constructed product; and improved communication
both for JMA and across the supply chain whereas it
provided opportunity to increase business relevance
of knowledge based research and teaching for the
higher education. Case study approach is employed
in this paper and the KTP project is assessed for i)
how it helped in improving JMA’s knowledge and
technology capacity in conducting their practice,
and, ii) how it helped the university in improving its
knowledge based research and teaching.