That’s the conclusion from the latest results, published today.
They also build a stronger picture of knowledge exchange (KE) performance, more year-on-year comparisons and consolidate previous successes.
Opportunity to compare results
The KEF plays a key role in providing unique and important public information on the rich and diverse ways English universities continue to engage with society and our economy, locally, nationally and internationally.
KEF4 adds a second year of comparative results to the picture of KE activity, further building trends that can be looked at in the performance of English higher education providers (HEPs) over time.
This fourth iteration of the framework continues the robust unchanged technical methodology used in KEF2 and KEF3, and incorporates the latest data to provide up-to-date performance results.
The latest KEF4 results provide an opportunity not just for an updated snapshot of the performance of HEPs against their peers, but for comparison between the results of these three iterations of results.
KE performance
The KEF looks at performance through both type of university and type of KE activity.
Particular strengths of the KEF are in demonstrating:
- the range of valuable activities universities conduct with external partners across seven perspectives of KE
- the diversity of universities that deliver important activities for our economy and society
KEF is well settled in its current design.
It builds on previous extensive engagement with the higher education (HE) sector in its development and is regarded as a sound novel approach to performance comparison in KE.
Building on success
KEF is a recognised tool for universities to better understand and improve their KE performance.
In addition to consolidating the KEF, it builds upon the successes of its predecessors in growing the status of KE, driving strategic and evolved approaches, and helping to improve national KE data.
Differences from KEF3
This latest set of results shows there have been differences from KEF3 by type of university.
In the ‘local growth and regeneration’ perspective large universities with a broad discipline base (cluster E) increased their performance on average relative to the rest sector.
While in the ‘research partnerships’ perspective, science, technology, engineering and mathematics specialist institutions’ performance returned to similar performance levels of KEF2 after an increase in KEF3.
These latest results start to build a picture of the trajectory of the performance of both individual HEPs and different types of universities over time.
Evolution of the KEF
This current phase of stability is key in the evolution of the KEF to maximise its value to universities and other stakeholders in the HE sector to annually compare and track performance results.
However, in the long-term it is Research England’s ambition to capture the breadth of KE activity, and ultimately allow consideration of the use of KEF in Research England KE funding.
This will be through a designated programme to improve the availability and quality of KE data and metrics, for use in the KEF.
Find out more about the KEF
For more information about the KEF, including about clusters, perspectives and metrics, please take a look at the technical notes on the KEF website.
Research England will continue to publish future iterations of the KEF annually.
The KEF is not currently used to inform funding.
Top image: Credit: pixdeluxe, E+ via Getty Images