Research creates knowledge. Education develops people. Innovation creates value.
I've increasingly found myself using the term innovation rather than knowledge exchange.
Not because knowledge exchange is unimportant. Quite the opposite. It remains central to how universities engage with businesses, public bodies, charities and wider society.
But I have come to think that innovation provides a broader and more useful way of understanding how universities create value beyond their core missions of research and education.
The distinction matters because the two terms encourage us to think differently.
Knowledge exchange describes a set of activities. It focuses on the sharing, transfer, and application of knowledge between universities and external partners.
Innovation starts somewhere different.
It begins with a challenge, opportunity or ambition that an external organisation is trying to address and asks a simple question:
How can the university help create value in response?
The answer may involve research. It may involve professional education, graduate talent, specialist facilities, consultancy expertise, student projects or strategic partnerships.
Often, it involves several of these working together. And ideally to align with what we need too. Whether that is widening access, generating margin/surplus, or REF impact.
This is why I increasingly see knowledge exchange as part of innovation rather than a complete description of it.
Many of the most valuable relationships universities build are not defined by the exchange of knowledge alone. A business recruiting graduates, an employer investing in executive education, or a public body accessing specialist facilities, or requiring solutions to policy challenges are all creating value through engagement with a university, even where knowledge exchange is only one element of the relationship.
Thinking in terms of innovation also reflects how external organisations see us.
Partners rarely approach universities looking for a specific form of engagement. They do not organise their challenges around our institutional structures, departments or professional boundaries.
They are focused on outcomes.
They want solutions to problems, support to realise opportunities and access to capabilities that can help them achieve their goals.
Universities are at their most effective when they respond in the same way: bringing together research, education, talent, facilities and networks in ways that address external needs.
That is why I think language matters.
When knowledge exchange is treated as a distinct activity, attention can become focused on individual mechanisms and transactions. Innovation encourages a broader perspective. It starts with external demand and considers the full range of university capabilities that can contribute to a solution.
Research remains fundamental.
Education remains fundamental.
Innovation provides a way of connecting both to wider economic, social and organisational value.
That is why I increasingly use the term innovation. Not because it replaces knowledge exchange, but because it captures something bigger.
Knowledge exchange remains an essential part of what universities do. Innovation is the broader framework that helps us understand how all our capabilities can come together to create value for the organisations and communities we serve.
We would be interested in your views. Please share your thoughts with us at innovation-enterprise@bath.ac.uk.