The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is committed to encouraging collaboration between researchers and businesses, policymakers, the public and third sector organisations (for example charities and voluntary groups).
This can create mutual benefits and contribute to positive economic and social impacts outside academia, for example through changes to policy and practice or new products and services created by commercialising research.
Two-way interactions of this type are often collectively referred to as knowledge exchange. This is an umbrella term that covers a wide range of activities researchers might engage in, including policy engagement, public engagement, commercialisation and business engagement.
Activities that involve only the one-way transfer of knowledge out from academia are known as knowledge transfer.
Find out more about:
- how ESRC supports policy engagement
- how ESRC supports public engagement
- how ESRC and UKRI support public involvement in research and innovation
- how ESRC supports innovation, including business engagement and commercialisation
- ESRC’s Impact Acceleration Accounts, which support multiple types of collaboration
- how researchers can do effective knowledge exchange
- how researchers can commercialise their research
Ask a question about ESRC and collaboration
For any queries not covered by the above pages, please contact ESRC.