The Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) is a landmark tool that helps universities and policymakers understand how higher education is driving forwards to achieve economic growth and societal benefit across England.
Now in its fifth year, KEF has proven to be a well-designed, resilient and trusted framework.
A collaborative approach
The framework, designed by Research England, shines a light on how different universities collaborate with businesses, communities and public services
It enables institutions to track their progress, benchmark performance and make smarter decisions about how they share knowledge and innovation with the world.
A smarter way to measure impact
KEF is unique in the UK and globally and captures the full spectrum of university activity.
It translates complex data into clear performance insights across the following seven key areas:
- research partnerships
- working with business
- working with the public and third sector
- Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and graduate start-ups
- local growth and regeneration
- intellectual property (IP) and commercialisation
- public and community engagement
These insights make it easier for universities, government and the public to see where impact is happening and where it can grow.
A framework that’s stood the test of time
Since KEF2 in 2022, the framework has used a stable and robust methodology, enabling universities to:
- compare four years of results
- understand long-term patterns
- benchmark their performance against peers
This time series gives institutions a clearer picture of how their knowledge exchange efforts are evolving.
Progress across the sector
This year’s results show real progress across the sector.
For example, since KEF2:
- Royal Northern College of Music has moved from the lowest score to the highest in the CPD and graduate start-ups perspective
- Queen Mary University of London has improved from a score of 1 to 3, reflecting stronger support for professional training and entrepreneurship
- in IP and commercialisation, University of Portsmouth has improved from a mid-range score of 3 to the highest of 5, showing growing success in turning research into commercial products compared to their peers
- Cranfield University has significantly strengthened its work with public and third sector organisations, rising from the lowest score in KEF2 to a score of 4 in KEF5
Sector trends across universities
KEF also reveals broader sector trends across different types of universities.
For example, in KEF5, large, research-intensive institutions with a broad academic focus have, on average, improved their performance in working with the public and third sector.
In contrast, arts specialist universities have seen a dip in their performance in local growth and regeneration, a shift that mirrors the sector wide decreases in regeneration income.
Designed with the sector, for the sector
The KEF’s success lies in its co-design with universities and its ability to evolve.
Research England has refined the framework over time, listening to feedback and improving how data is collected and shared.
This collaborative approach is integral in ensuring it has become a tool most useful to universities and best represents the activity on the ground.
This has made KEF a cornerstone of a healthier, more impactful research and innovation system.
What’s next?
With KEF now in a phase of stability, better data and smarter metrics in the long-term are what will ensure its continued success.
Research England is investing in a specific programme to drive forwards innovative data design.
The recent UK spin-out register brings much needed greater visibility to university spin-out activity and the potential to further improve the data currently used in KEF.
A novel approach
While KEF doesn’t currently inform funding, the novel approaches it has piloted to capturing university knowledge exchange activities are providing insights to shape future formula funding approaches.
Research England will continue to publish future iterations of the KEF annually.
Explore the KEF5 results and learn more about how the framework works.
Further information
The majority of the data that forms the metrics of the KEF continues to come from the long-standing Higher Education Statistics Agency (part of Jisc) Higher Education Business and Community Interaction survey supported by:
- narratives provided by the institutions for the first iteration that inform the local growth and regeneration, and public and community engagement perspectives
- data provided by Innovate UK
- data provided by Elsevier
All institutions in receipt of a Research England Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) allocation in 2024 to 2025 is included in the exercise.
Some institutions who were eligible for HEIF but did not meet the threshold for an allocation have still elected to participate in the KEF.
The clusters are not ranked and the KEF is not a league table.
Technical details for the KEF
The ‘KE clusters’ used enable the KEF to compare institutions on a like-for-like basis, with similar institutions being grouped together with their peers.
This is a fair and balanced approach that avoids making unhelpful comparisons between incomparable institutions.
Clustering has been instrumental in demonstrating the value of universities of all sizes and specialisms and their contributions to the UK economy.
KEF results are determined by taking data covering a wide range of a university’s activities and using this to form a series of metrics.
These then go into seven perspectives and a university receives a quintile score for each perspective displayed in relation to the average for its cluster.
Universities are scored on each of the seven perspectives using a quintile ranging from 1 to 5.
A score of 5 indicates very high engagement in that specific knowledge exchange activity, placing the institution among the top performers in that activity.
Conversely, a score of 1 reflects very low engagement, suggesting limited activity or performance in that area compared to other institutions.