Imperial College London has scored top marks in five out of seven categories in Research England’s Knowledge Exchange Framework.

The fourth annual Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) showed Imperial has been achieving strong results in its work to share research and expertise with society and create real-world impact – a key goal of the university’s new strategy, Science for Humanity.

The KEF rates universities in England on how well they engage with industry, the economy and society, relative to the rest of the higher education sector. The wide range of activities measured in the KEF includes partnerships with business, organising public events, and licensing intellectual property for commercial use. 

"Developing strong partnerships with communities and businesses is vital if we are to tackle some of the biggest global challenges." Professor Mary Ryan Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise)

The participating institutions are split into clusters alongside similar institutions based on their size and research output. Imperial is included in Cluster V, alongside institutions that are classed as ‘very large, very high research-intensive, and undertaking significant amounts of excellent research’. 

The framework scores institutions in seven categories: public and community engagement, research partnerships, working with business, working with the public and third sector, CPD (continuing professional development) and graduate startups, local growth and regeneration, and IP and commercialisation. 

Scores are shown through five quintiles ranging from very low engagement (Quintile 1) to very high engagement (Quintile 5). Each quintile shows an institution’s performance relative to the rest of the sector.

Professor Mary Ryan, Imperial's Vice Provost (Research and Enterprise), said: “The translation of our research for the benefit of society has been core to Imperial’s mission since our founding in 1907. This ideal runs through all of our activities and we are delighted to see our efforts recognised in the new KEF results.  

“Developing strong partnerships with communities and businesses is vital if we are to tackle some of the biggest global challenges. It is impressive to see the impact the whole HE sector is having in delivering tangible real-world change.”

High engagement with society

Imperial has continued its strong performance in the KEF in recent years, with the university remaining in the top quintile (Quintile 5) for five of the seven categories, indicating very high engagement relative to the sector.

These categories were:

• Public and community engagement

• Research partnerships

• Working with business

• Working with the public and third sector

• IP and commercialisation

Imperial also scored in Quintile 4 for CPD and graduate startups, indicating high engagement in this area.

The university was ranked in Quintile 2 for local growth and regeneration – a perspective that is based on a single metric: HEBCI (Higher Education Business and Community Interaction) regeneration and development income from all sources normalised by HEI income. Due to the way that this is measured in HEBCI, investments that Imperial has made and attracted to the White City area are not considered.

The KEF aims to help higher education institutions better understand and improve their own performance in knowledge exchange and provide more information about the world-class knowledge and expertise within English providers of higher education. The results for 2024 showed that Cluster V institutions performed strongest overall in the sector.

Excellence in all areas

The strong results in this year’s KEF come after similarly strong performances in the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF) and Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF).

In 2022, Imperial achieved its best-ever results in the REF, ranking top in the UK overall with a greater proportion of “world-leading” research than any other UK university. The results ranked Imperial as first in the UK for research outputs, first in the UK for research environment, and first for research impact among Russell Group universities.

The university also recently received a Gold Award in the most recent TEF – the national rating system’s highest award – placing it among the best institutions in the UK. 

Alongside these results, Imperial has continued to score highly for student satisfaction in the National Student Survey (NSS), with the most recent survey placing the university in the top quartile of the Russell Group. 

More information on the KEF results for 2024 can be found on Reseach England’s website.