The annual awards ceremony, held in the Liberty Stadium, highlighted the success of KTPs – partnerships between universities and business, where an associate - a high performing graduate - is appointed to work in a business to work on a strategic project, with the support of university expert knowledge.
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP) in Wales is managed and part sponsored by the Welsh Assembly Government and forms part of the Academic Expertise for Business programme (A4B).
Laing O’Rourke, the UK’s largest privately owned construction company, approached Swansea University in 2007, with their idea to run three KTPs simultaneously – to maximise impact, making efficiency savings and technological advancements. The reduced waste and increased resource efficiency could save the company tens of thousands of pounds each year.
Dr Jarmila Davies, Technology Programmes Manager for the Welsh Assembly Government said of the wining partnership: "It is fantastic result to see that this very complex KTP project has achieved such recognition.
"The partnership between Swansea University and Laing O’Rourke truly deserves this recognition for their hard work on the projects and the resulting innovations and efficiencies.
"These results are proof that collaboration between Higher Education and industry can bring real benefit to the economy. The Welsh winning partnership will automatically enter the national KTP award for the best KTP project 2010."
The first project in the partnership focussed on waste reduction, and found out the true cost of wasted materials and labour, and addressed these through designing out waste at the concept stage, applying reverse logistics, finding ways to increase resource efficiency and re-using constructions plastics in new products.
The second looked at biometrics – and resulted in the identification of finger vein technology and an entirely new integrated device, whilst the third project resulted in solutions to use Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in managing a mobile workforce for real time updates on location.
Swansea University Vice Chancellor, Richard B Davies, who accepted the award at the event, said of the projects: "I am both proud and delighted that the work of Swansea University has been recognised by such a prestigious award.
"Swansea University was founded at the behest of industry in 1920 and we have always been comfortable working closely with industry. This award shows that we have the high-level expertise to help develop an innovative, modern knowledge economy and the commitment to support wealth creation."
Ceri Jones, Deputy Head of Swansea University’s Department of Research and Innovation, who was involved in supporting the bid for the projects, said: "The success of this Knowledge Transfer Partnership has been superb, and everyone who has worked on it has reaped rewards – the associates gained experience and jobs; the University gained knowledge and insight into the construction industry to feed back into their research and teaching; and the company gained efficiency improvements and increased turnover.
"With all those benefits we hope that more businesses and organisations in Wales will see the benefits of the KTP programme, and that we can continue to work together to boost the knowledge economy in Wales."
Note:
Photo image shows winning partnership team from Swansea University and Laing O'Rourke: (L to R) Akshay Peer, Jonny Williams, Vice Chancellor Richard Davies, Prof. Nick Doran, Bin Chen, Conrad Jagger and Tim Searle hold the winners trophy.
To find out more about Knowledge Transfer Partnerships and how they could work for your business, click here.
If you would like to speak with a University representative about a problem within your business, or you have an idea for working with the University, email: researchandinnovation@swansea.ac.uk or call the business hotline on: 01792 606060.
