European Commission. Measuring the Impact of University Business Cooperation: Final report. European Union. 2014. Pages: 79

This EC study was done by Cardiff University in association with Newcastle University and Imperial Consultants for the Directorate General for Education and Culture of the European Commission. 

By analysing 10 cases in 6 EU countries (UK, Finland, Spain, Bulgaria, Germany, Czech), it looks into existing and emerging types of university-business cooperation in Europe, their drivers and effects, and aims to develop relevant indicators and assessment methodology to measure the outcomes and impact of this cooperation. A special focus is placed on Knowledge Alliances. the European Commission launched the Knowledge Alliance pilot initiative to create new multidisciplinary curricula to promote entrepreneurship within education as well as developing other transferable skills. This initially funded a small number of pilot projects in 2011 and 2012 before embedding the initiative in the Lifelong Learning Programme in 2013. From 2014 Knowledge Alliances will be part of the Erasmus+ programme. Knowledge Alliances must “be a truly two-way process: higher education and business joining forces to design innovative, sustainable ways of increasing human capital”, it is noted in the report. 

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Report (PDF)