Report

Unlocking innovation

This report from UK think tank NCUB provides a 20-year quantitative analysis on university-business collaboration.

This report provides an analysis of university-business collaboration income in the UK over the past 20 years. The report highlights several key findings: 

• Income to universities from collaboration with businesses has increased significantly: from £900 million to £1.5 billion (62%) between 2004 and 2023. 

• Universities that generated very little collaboration income in 2004 and/or have a low research capacity saw the steepest growth rates between then and 2023. 

• The majority of the growth in collaboration income came from contract services and intellectual property, which together accounted for 86% of the overall increase. 

• Most UK nations and English regions showed similarly positive growth in collaboration income, but success varied widely among individual universities. 

• Given that high research capacity universities tend to be large, they constituted most of the gains in income amount. 

• Collaboration income tends to rise during economic booms and decline during recessions. This and other evidence shows a consistent relationship between macroeconomic performance and collaboration income levels.