Latest insights from KEF6
KEF6 provides the latest insights into how universities across England are continuing to create impacts on the economy, including in their local region.
This year, cluster averages for all knowledge exchange perspectives either improved or maintained from last year in almost all cases.
This reflects universities’ continued contributions to the key economic growth dimensions of commercialising ideas, partnering with a range of organisations, driving workforce upskilling and enabling local economic development.
Highlighted trends from the data include the following.
Working with business
Very large research-intensive institutions with a broad discipline base (cluster V) improved their performance in the ‘Working with business’ perspective, moving from a cluster average of quintile four to quintile five.
A key driver of this change has been the increased engagement with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Research partnerships
In the ‘Research partnerships’ perspective, four clusters of institutions have each improved their cluster average by one quintile. These clusters are:
- small and large teaching-focused institutions with a broad discipline base (clusters M and E respectively)
- very large research-intensive institutions with a broad discipline base (cluster V)
- arts specialist institutions (cluster ARTS)
Notable performers within these clusters include York St John University (cluster M), which has increased its proportion of outputs co-authored with non-academic partners (moving from quintile one to three).
Another notable performer was the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (cluster ARTS), whose improved performance reflects greater engagement in collaborative research with non-academic partners (moving from quintile three to four).
Spotlighting university success
KEF also reveals the success stories of individual institutions. Examples include the following.
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM)
The LSTM has maintained a very high level of engagement (quintile five) in the ‘Local growth and regeneration’ perspective for the third consecutive year, having improved from quintile two in KEF2.
Manchester Metropolitan University
Manchester Met strengthened its performance in the ‘IP and commercialisation’ perspective, moving up from a score of quintile three, which the institution had maintained since KEF2, to quintile four in KEF6.
Its improved score reflects increased performances in metrics relating to spin-out investment, and licensing and IP income.
University of Cumbria
In the ‘Working with the public and third sector’ perspective, the University of Cumbria has moved up to quintile three in KEF6, after four steady years of being in quintile two.
A robust and established database
KEF is a trusted knowledge base, capturing data on a wide range of interactions between universities and their non-academic partners, including businesses, the public sector and local communities.
This year, KEF6 adds a fifth year of comparable data on universities’ knowledge exchange performance.
This means that KEF is a robust, established database that can be used to understand how universities are using their research to realise real world impacts and growth, all across England.
A wide-reaching view
KEF provides performance insights relating to seven broad areas of knowledge exchange activity, known as perspectives:
- research partnerships
- working with business
- working with the public and third sector
- continuing professional development (CPD) and graduate start ups
- local growth and regeneration
- IP and commercialisation
- public and community engagement
Each perspective represents a set of metrics that measure performance in relevant activities.
Universities are also grouped into knowledge exchange clusters to provide comparisons between similar institutions.
Empowering decision-making
KEF enables an understanding of both high-level trends and more granular patterns of performance.
For instance, KEF can provide insights into:
- where impact is happening
- how an institution compares against its peers
- how performance has changed over time at sector, cluster and institutional level
- what the current gaps and opportunities are
Access KEF6 dashboards
Explore KEF6 dashboards and find out more about the framework.
Research England will continue to publish future iterations of KEF annually.
Further information
The majority of the data that forms the metrics of 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 2025 to 2026 are 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 KEF.
The clusters are not ranked and KEF is not a league table.
Technical details for 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 one to five.
A score of five indicates very high engagement in that specific knowledge exchange activity, placing the institution among the top performers in that activity.
Conversely, a score of one reflects very low engagement, suggesting limited activity or performance in that area compared to other institutions.