Knowledge West - The Lessons Learned

Summary

Benefits

• The benefits created by the Knowledge West project have been numerous and wide-ranging. Download the PDF of this case study for a more detailed 'look back' by our advisors, or view our other online case studies for examples of specific beenfits realised by those we worked with.

The Knowledge West flagship advisor team was formed in 2006 and included individuals with between 20 to 30 years experience of working within the focus areas of Digital Media, Sustainable Energy and Business Capabilities. The flagship advisors have previous team and project management experience having worked across different organisations including a mix of private and public sector. As a team, the flagship advisors complemented one another in terms of experience across the university or business partners and cooperated to develop into a self-managing team. This cross-fertilisation of experience supported networking and identification of partners for projects. As one advisor noted:

"Advisors face both the business world and the academic world. They need to have a number of years business experience at both a production and strategic level. This gives a credibility and gravitas to the role. They also benefit from a large and effective contact base and access to these people. Advisors need to be good communicators, listeners and be proactive in developing new contacts. Academics alone will not easily gain the trust of business, and business partners can find it difficult to contact the 'right' academic. The advisor is a necessary intermediary with business experience and academic understanding."