Project team
- David Angenendt
- Alan Hughes
- Robert Hughes
- Michael Kitson
- Ammon Salter (University of Bath)
Project status
Ongoing
Project dates
2019-2021
Funding
National Centre for Universities & Business (NCUB) acting as the commissioning body with support from Research England
Overview
Background
Consideration and understanding of the drivers, motivations, and factors that influence decisions of businesses to invest in research and innovation is a critical element of the evidence base required to achieve the ambitions of the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy and the 2.4% R&D target. Building a new evidence base is critical to inform both policy thinking and formulation, and to track progress over time.
This project is funded by NCUB and builds on a number of earlier studies on the commercial application of academic research conducted by the CBR. It aims to identify the range, form, significance of, and business motivation for knowledge exchange (KE) activities between the UK private business sector and the UK university sector.
Methods
The research will adopt a web-based survey approach. The sampling frame will be drawn from three source: a large, public-domain database (FAME); a list of respondents to earlier CBR survey; and a list of firms known to have participated in an earlier CBR project on links between businesses and university-based academics in the years 2016-19. The survey will be supported by a number of in-depth interviews.
Progress
Understanding of the drivers, motivations, and factors that influence decisions of businesses to invest in research and innovation is a critical element of the evidence base required to achieve the ambitions of the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy and the 2.4% R&D target. Building a new evidence base is critical to inform both policy thinking and formulation, and to track progress over time.
This project was commissioned by the National Centre for Universities & Business (NCUB) with support from Research England and built on several earlier studies on the commercial application of academic research conducted by the CBR. The project identified the range, form, significance of, and business motivation for knowledge exchange activities between the UK private business sector and the UK university sector.
The research was based on a web-based survey with a sample of 3823 companies in all sectors, regions and countries of the UK and the full range of employment sizes from micro-firms employing less than 10 people to the largest public listed corporations.
The project identified ten key findings. First, commercialisation is a small part of a larger landscape of knowledge exchange activities. Second, the role of proximity to a university is not very important for many firms. Third, both business and universities play active roles in initiating and facilitating interactions, with mutual actions being the norm. Fourth, companies including micro businesses interact not just with large research-focused universities but also smaller and more specialized and teaching focused institutions. Fifth, companies that interact with universities rely on a diverse range of academic disciplines, including the natural sciences and engineering but also the social sciences, the arts and humanities, and business and management. Sixth, technology-based innovation-related factors are a motivation to interact for 60% of companies, but there are a wide range of other parts of business activities that motivate interaction. Seventh, over 80% of companies indicated that interactions met or exceeded their expectations. Eighth, many companies indicated that they were lacking in the ability to search for external knowledge from universities and invested only modest effort and time in integrating this knowledge. Ninth, for companies with at least one interaction, lack of resources within the company itself was the most frequently identified important constraint on interaction. Tenth, the most important reasons given for non- interaction relate to lack of information, both about how to interact and about the benefits of such interaction.
Read the report, The Changing State of Business-University Interactions in the UK
Project funding
Against this background Research England has agreed with NCUB that NCUB will commission research exploring new ideas and approaches that support the connections between universities and business through various agreed activities. As part of this explorative research funding NCUB has commissioned the Centre for Business Research (CBR) to conduct a survey of business-university relationships in the UK and CBR has agreed to carry out this survey which will establish a new baseline dataset on business perspectives on collaboration and interactions with universities in the UK.
The project survey
The survey will seek to identify the range, form, significance of, and business motivation for knowledge exchange (KE) interactions between the UK private business sector and the UK university sector. Knowledge exchange includes the full range of ways in which the business community and the higher education sector interact and which may affect business and economic development. These interactions include educational and training activities, research publications and patenting, conferences, contracting and consulting activity, internships, joint research and development and licensing and new business formation.
The survey will be web-based with the sampling frame for the survey will be drawn from three principle sources: a large public domain company database (FAME); a list of respondents to a prior Business KE Survey carried out by two members of the project team in 2009; a list of firms (to be compiled with the assistance of Research England UKRI and BEIS) known to have participated in Research Council, BEIS and Innovate UK sponsored projects linking businesses and university academics in the years 2016-2019.
CBR will support the survey by carrying out a suite of 30 in-depth interviews designed to complement the quantitative survey base results with a qualitative process-based interpretation of specific knowledge exchange examples. Up to ten of these interviews will take place alongside the development of the survey instrument and will help in cognitive testing of proposed survey questions. The remainder will be used to follow up issues emerging from the interim findings from the full survey. The suite as a whole will obtain substantive qualitative material.
Participant information about the privacy policy, GDPR notice and frequently asked questions
Information about project privacy policy, a GDPR notice relating to the project, and a set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about the project is listed on this page.
GDPR notice
Business and Higher Education Interaction Survey project: personal data transparency information
The National Centre for Universities and Business (NCUB) has commissioned the Centre for Business Research (CBR) to conduct a survey of business-higher education institutions relationships in the UK. This will establish a new baseline dataset on business perspectives on collaboration and interactions with higher education institutions in the UK.
The survey will involve the processing of personal data relating to several hundred thousand directors of UK companies. A sample of tens of thousands is drawn from this wider dataset for survey data collection and analysis. The survey itself collects no personal data relating to the directors or any other person. The survey responses and resulting dataset contain no personal data. The personal data is used purely to identify email addresses for the conduct and administration of the survey.
GDPR requirements: the research purposes exemption
Accessing and processing this personal data by the CBR is undertaken using the research purposes exemption of the GDPR. The processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest, namely for scientific research purposes and statistical purposes. The data will be retained for no longer than is necessary to construct the sample that will be used in the survey, and so will be deleted at the end of the survey process. The collection of the data will not lead to any automated decision making, including profiling, that could produce legal effects or otherwise similarly effect a particular data subject.
GDPR requirements: the exemption for data not collected firstly from data subjects
In relation to the processing of data relating to several hundred thousand company directors prior to constructing the sample to be used in survey data collection and analysis, the GDPR exemption to the need to provide transparency information to data subjects on an individual basis is applicable. This exemption applies when the personal data has not been collected firstly from the data subjects concerned, and where supplying the information to them would involve disproportionate effort. The exemption is relevant here because of the scale of the effort required to contact several hundred thousand individuals and because the risk of any harm to them is very low, as all the personal data collected is from sources already in the public domain, and because no personal data will be used in the analysis of the survey results or included in the dataset thereby generated.
See further details on the relevant GDPR exemptions
Further details on the project, and the data processing to be carried out in respect of it, are set out below.
The project survey
The survey seeks to identify the range, form, significance of, and business motivation for knowledge exchange (KE) interactions between the UK private business sector and the UK university sector. Knowledge exchange includes the full range of ways in which the business community and the higher education sector interact and which may affect business and economic development. These interactions include educational and training activities, research publications and patenting, conferences, contracting and consulting activity, internships, joint research and development and licensing and new business formation.
Personal data and the survey
In order to administer the survey CBR will collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data derived principally from the FAME database and based on Companies House supplemented by public domain sources in the Hunter database. The sampling frame is all registered companies with over 10 employees in all sectors of the UK economy. This includes several hundred thousand companies and their directors.
The personal data collected in this process includes identity data (including, where available, first name, last name, salutation and contact data including work address, email address and telephone numbers).
As explained above, this personal data will be stored and processed by CBR following the GDPR regulations of the University of Cambridge.
Using this personal data, the CBR will select for the survey the most senior director (typically at CEO or Managing Director level) with an email contact for each company in the sampling frame. Only these selected directors with a verified email contact address are then included in the sample for the survey.
The personal details of all other directors collected in the original sampling frame data collection exercise for whom no email contact can be established will not be subject to any further data processing. This personal data will be deleted from the CBR sampling frame database at the end of the survey process.
The survey seeks to identify the range, form, significance of, and business motivation for knowledge exchange (KE) interactions between the UK private business sector and the UK university sector. Knowledge exchange includes the full range of ways in which the business community and the higher education sector interact and which may affect business and economic development. These interactions include educational and training activities, research publications and patenting, conferences, contracting and consulting activity, internships, joint research and development and licensing and new business formation.
The personal data of directors which CBR collects in the course of this project is thus used purely for identifying directors with email contact addresses for use in the administration of the survey and will not form any part of the analysis of survey responses.
The directors who are invited to participate in the survey will receive with their invitation full participation terms and conditions associated with completion of the survey which will be on an informed consent basis. Invitees will be provided with details of the survey process including data storage, data processing and data analysis, data storage and the way their personal data was processed all following the relevant GDPR provisions. There is a dedicated project webpage describing the project and a web page with a Participant Information Sheet.
Participant information: privacy policy
Introduction
This is the privacy policy for the purpose of the Business and Higher Education Interaction Survey being conducted by the Centre for Business Research (CBR), part of Cambridge Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge whose registered address is The Old Schools, Trinity Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1TN (CBR). This policy applies specifically to CBR’s conduct of the Business and Higher Education Interaction Survey (Survey) via its dedicated online webpages.
CBR’s research partners are:
- The Council for Industry and Higher Education, trading as the National Centre for Universities and Business (NCUB); and
- Third parties to whom NCUB are to facilitate authorised access via any data repository, (such as the NCUB Secure Data Lab), for purposes consistent with the aims and objectives for the Survey including UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and any entity or body participating in UKRI (such as Research England).
CBR respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy policy will inform you as to how we look after your personal data when you participate in the Survey and access it via our Webpages, or that we have collected and used it as part of the Survey in connection with its management, and will inform you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.
This privacy policy is set out in the specific sections below.
- Important information and who we are
- The data we collect about you
- How is your personal data collected?
- How we use your personal data
- Disclosures of your personal data
- International transfers
- Data security
- Data retention
- Your legal rights
1. Important information and who we are
Background
The survey is designed to capture the extent of interactions between UK businesses and UK universities. It can be answered both by firms with, and those without, such interactions. At the same time, the survey asks about the reasons that may hamper the extent and success of such interactions. The survey is also designed to capture a wide variety of knowledge-exchange activities, including those aimed at the wider community, such as the provision of public lectures and involvement with school projects.
The survey and the analysis of the results, including your anonymised inputs will produce a new dataset and deeper understanding of business perspectives on collaboration and interactions with universities in the UK. These can be used to inform and shape future policy decisions.
Purpose of this privacy policy
This privacy policy provides information to you on how CBR collects and processes any personal data whether that data is obtained by us from third party sources (such as the UK companies research database FAME) or through your engagement with CBR’s research team and your participation in the Survey.
Controllers
CBR collaborates closely with its Research Partners, however, because we share survey response data (but no personal data) with each of them as part of their involvement with our work and the Survey, this privacy policy is issued on behalf of them and when we mention “CBR, “we”, “us”, “our” in this privacy policy, we also refer to the Research Partners as processing your survey data. No personal data is however shared with these partners or processed by them at any stage
CBR’s Research Partners that are also data controllers with the CBR are the Council for Industry and Higher Education, trading as the National Centre for Universities and Business (NCUB), a company registered in England and Wales with Company Number 3465914 of Studio 10 Tiger House, Burton Street, London, WC1H 9BY.
Contact details
For any questions about this privacy policy or our privacy practices, please contact the research team at CBR as set out below:
Email address: busurvey@cam.ac.uk
For the attention of: Higher Education Interaction Survey Team
You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Officer (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues. We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance (busurvey@cam.ac.uk).
2. The data we collect about you
For the purposes of the Survey we only collect a small amount of personal data.
Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include ‘anonymous data’, being data where the identity has been removed.
We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have listed in the following categories of personal data as follows:
- Identity data includes first name, last name, company position.
- Contact data includes work address, email address and telephone number.
All such data will be used in accordance with applicable personal data laws and regulations of the University of Cambridge.
This personal data is used purely for the administration of the survey and will be stored separately from the survey responses and will not form any part of the analysis of survey responses. It will be deleted entirely once the survey data collection closes.
3. How is your personal data collected?
The survey is commissioned from CBR by the National Centre for Universities and Business (NCUB) with funding support from Research England. It is being carried out by a survey team consisting of Michael Kitson and Alan Hughes (University of Cambridge) and Ammon Salter (University of Bath).
A report on the results of this survey will be available, free of charge, on the Centre for Business Research website at the University of Cambridge in Summer 2021.
Senior level contacts at UK businesses are being sent a personal email invitation inviting them to take part in the survey. The invitation email contains a survey link and the invitation letter sets out clear guidance on the way of taking part in or withdrawing from the survey process. Further emails may be sent after the initial invitation as a reminder to potential respondents who have not yet participated and who have not opted out.
The survey is being conducted online on a dedicated webpage using the REDCap survey software, which is hosted locally on a secure server of the University of Cambridge.
We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:
- Third parties or publicly available sources.
We will review personal data about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below:
Identity and contact data from publicly available sources in the Bureau van Dijk’s FAME database of UK Businesses or other public domain company data sources accessible via Hunter IO. - Direct interactions with CBR; through participation in the Survey process, such as by completing forms or by communication with us by email or otherwise, you may give us Identity and contact data. This includes personal data you provide when you: consent to participate in the Survey, complete the Survey Questionnaire or deliver other content as a respondent to the Survey, give us feedback or contact us.
4. How we use your personal data
Answers to the survey questions will be treated in the strictest confidence and analysed in keeping with the research integrity, and applicable personal data laws and regulations guidelines of the University of Cambridge. The survey questions do not ask for any personal information.
The survey response will be analysed in anonymised form so that the organisation to which they refer and the person responding cannot be identified and will be used for research and policy development purposes only. Published findings will only be presented in aggregate form so that no individual response can be identified. Nor will any organisational response be identified.
We will only use your personal data as permitted by law. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:
- Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
- Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
Each such circumstance is known as a “lawful basis” for processing personal data and these three circumstances are explained more fully as follows:
- Legitimate interests means the interests of CBR in conducting and managing the Survey to provide the best participation services and secure experience fulfilling the Survey’s purpose of enabling the creation of a new baseline dataset that builds a long-term source of evidence for both research impact and research and business development, as part of the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).
- Comply with a legal obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that we are subject to.
Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data. We will however seek your consent in specific cases (including as may be set out in the preamble to the survey questionnaire).
Purposes for which we will use your personal data
The table below describes how we use your personal data, and which legal basis we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.
Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful basis depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data.
| Purpose/activity | Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest | Type of data |
|---|---|---|
| To identify you as a director or senior executive within a company, with indicative industry sector focus; to enable you to be contacted on the basis of this profile. | Necessary for our legitimate interests (to enable us to conduct and manage the survey and create a new baseline dataset for research into the drivers, motivations and factors that influence business decisions to invest in r&d and innovation). | a) identity b) contact |
| To register you for participation in the survey (as a respondent representative or otherwise) and send you a dedicated weblink to complete the survey. | Necessary for our legitimate interests (to enable us to conduct and manage the survey and create a new baseline dataset for research into the drivers, motivations and factors that influence business decisions to invest in r&d and innovation). | a) identity b) contact |
| To manage our relationship with you which will include: a) enabling you to access the survey via the webpages, complete the survey and contribute respondent content b) communicating with you where appropriate or at your request | Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep the survey and response records up to date, to identify and understand how participants engage with the survey and webpages, to develop them and their utility and to facilitate their provision to participants). Necessary to comply with a legal obligation | a) identity b) contact |
| To deliver survey content to you, receive your response and measure or understand the effectiveness of our methodology and to use data analytics. | Necessary for our legitimate interests (to carry out research and analysis in respect of a response). | a) identity b) contact |
If you do not wish to take part, you can opt out of the survey by following the opt-out link at the end of the invitation email. You can also contact our project team at any stage, using the email address, busurvey@cam.ac.uk to let us know that you do not wish to take part. We will then remove you from the contacts list at the earliest possible opportunity. If you complete the survey and then decide to withdraw then if you write to the survey team busurvey@cam.ac.uk within two weeks of submitting your survey return your record will be permanently deleted in full.
5. Disclosures of your personal data
No personal data are stored in the final dataset and all personal data are deleted from CBR files at the close of the survey. Therefore, no one can access personal data or link it to the survey returns. The final dataset contains organisational identifiers kept in separate files from the survey returns.
The data generated by the survey will be treated at CBR in the strictest confidence and analysed in keeping with the research integrity and applicable personal data laws and regulations guidelines of the University of Cambridge:
- www.research-integrity.admin.cam.ac.uk/research-governance
- www.research-integrity.admin.cam.ac.uk/academic-research-involving-personal-data
Data will be analysed at CBR in anonymised form so that the organisation to which they belong cannot be identified in any publication and will be used for academic research purposes only. Published findings will only be presented in aggregate form so that no individual response can be identified. Nor will any organisational response be identified.
Similarly, NCUB will ensure through their Secure Data Lab that there are robust protocols in place with designated and separate roles controlling access to and management of the data including the maintenance of anonymity. Only aggregated results can be reported from the data, so that no individual response can be identified. Nor will any organisational response be identified.
6. International transfers
In collecting, processing and using limited personal data from both FAME and Hunter IO databases, all data is then stored securely on University of Cambridge servers and not hosted by external third parties internally.
7. Data security
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed.
While the survey is still active, the combined personal data, organizational identities and survey returns data are stored on a secure REDCap server within the network of the University of Cambridge. The data are password protected and can be accessed by members of the Survey project team only.
NCUB as the body commissioning the survey will establish a “Secure Data Lab” following the example and guidelines of the UK Data Service in which a copy of the full dataset including survey data and organisational identifiers in separate files (but excluding all personal data) will be deposited by CBR. NCUB may grant access to this dataset at the Secure Data Lab to third party analysts including UK Research and Innovation, an executive non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and established under the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (which brings together the seven Research Councils, Innovate UK and Research England (formerly the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)); The Secure Data Lab will enable approved and certified analysts (data users) at Research England and UKRI to have controlled access to the this dataset. NCUB will ensure that there are robust protocols in place with designated and separate roles controlling access to and management of the data including the maintenance of anonymity. Only aggregated results can be reported from the data, and no organization or individual will ever be identified.
8. Data retention
How long will you use my personal data for?
Upon completion of the survey all personal data will be removed from the survey server. The survey returns which do not include any personal data will be kept in anonymised, secure and password-protected form at CBR and a copy transferred to the NCUB Secure Data lab. Personal data used in the administration of the survey will therefore not be stored after completion of the survey and will be deleted from the survey datasets stored at CBR which are to be shared with NCUB.
The remaining dataset (which excludes all personal data) will be held confidentially and will not be used at the CBR for anything other than academic purposes or at the NCUB Secure Data lab for anything other than academic and policy analysis.
All CBR held data will be stored and analysed according to the applicable personal data laws compliance guidelines of the University of Cambridge and the data held at the NCUB Secure Lab Data will be managed and processed using UK Data Archive procedures and in accordance with relevant provisions of applicable personal data laws compliance regulations.
Survey responses at CBR and NCUB may be linked confidentially to other public domain sources of business information for policy development and academic research purposes. (e.g. patents, scientific publications, Companies House data). Only aggregate analysis will be published from this information and no individual or organization will be identified in any of the research or policy outputs.
In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see section 9 (Your legal rights) for further information.
9. Your legal rights
During the short period we are holding your personal data, under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data.
You have the right to:
Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms.
Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:
- If you want us to establish the data’s accuracy.
- Where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it.
- Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
- You have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent.
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us at
Email address: busurvey@cam.ac.uk
For the attention of: Higher Education Interaction Survey Team
No fee usually required
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
What we may need from you
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.
Time limit to respond
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
FAQs
This information sheet provides answers to frequently asked questions including background, contact and support, survey design and technical questions.
Background
The survey is designed to capture the extent of interactions between UK businesses and UK universities. It can be answered both by firms with, and those without, such interactions. At the same time the survey asks about the reasons that may hamper the extent and success of such interactions. The survey is also designed to capture a wide variety of knowledge-exchange activities including those aimed at the wider community, such as the provision of public lectures and involvement with school projects.
We invite you to fill in and submit the survey whether your business has interacted with universities or not. One of the insights generated by this project is an understanding of how widespread interaction between businesses and universities is. Other issues of interest are whether there are particularly prevalent reasons why some businesses do not interact universities. The higher the number of businesses that respond to the survey the more we can learn about these questions.
By taking part you will make an important contribution in advancing our knowledge to develop government policy in support of UK businesses such as yours.
To design policy support for UK businesses policymakers must understand the drivers, motivations, and factors that influence decisions of businesses to invest in research and innovation. This includes policy to ensure effective business interaction with the UK university sector that is a major source of new knowledge as well as graduate and postgraduate recruits for the business sector.
The survey and the analysis of the results, including your anonymised inputs, will produce a new dataset and deeper understanding of business perspectives on collaboration and interactions with universities in the UK. These can be used to inform and shape future policy decisions.
The survey is commissioned from CBR by the National Centre for Universities and Business with support from Research England. It is being carried by a survey team consisting of Alan Hughes and Michael Kitson (University of Cambridge) and Ammon Salter (University of Bath).
A report on the results of this survey will be available, free of charge, on the Centre for Business Research website at the University of Cambridge in the summer of 2021.
The survey is commissioned by the National Centre for Universities and Business (NCUB) with support from Research England.
Senior level contacts at UK businesses are being sent a personal email inviting them to take part in the survey. The invitation email contains a survey link unique to the recipient and the invitation letter sets out clear guidance on consenting to take part or withdraw from the survey process. A further two emails will be sent after the initial invitation as a reminder to potential respondents who have not yet participated or who have not opted out.
The survey is being conducted online on a dedicated webpage using the REDCap survey software, which is hosted locally on a secure server of the University of Cambridge.
We have followed best practice procedures concerning ethical issues involved in conducting a large-scale web-based survey. In particular:
- Recipients of the survey are provided with full information of the nature of the research project of which the survey is a part.
- Recipients of the survey are provided with full information on the funding sources for the research project, the institutional affiliation of the project team (Universities of Cambridge and Bath), and the names of the senior researchers working on the project (Alan Hughes, Michael Kitson and Ammon Salter).
- All potential respondents are informed about the voluntary nature of their participation in the survey and are offered the choice to opt out of any future correspondence. They are also informed that their responses will be kept in anonymised form and used only for purposes of academic research and informing policy making.
- The personal contact details are stored separately from the survey responses. Should a respondent request that their contact details be deleted, this will be done at the earliest possible opportunity.
- While the survey is still active the personal and survey data including the identity of the respondent’s organisation data are stored on a secure server. The data are password protected and can only be accessed by members of the project team.
- Upon completion of the survey all personal data will be deleted from the survey dataset and the remaining data including the identity of the respondent’s organisation will be removed from the REDCap server and kept in secure and password-protected form in a secure data platform with the organisational identity and survey returns kept in separate files.
- The project team will respond to any query from respondents and potential respondents at the earliest possible opportunity.
- Recipients of the survey have access to a list of Frequently Asked Questions.
A participant information sheet setting out our privacy policy in full is available to potential respondents on this project website.
Contact and support
You can contact our project team at any stage using the email address busurvey@cam.ac.uk.
A summary report of the results based on the survey findings will be available, free of charge, on the Centre for Business Research website at the University of Cambridge in the summer of 2021.
Survey design
The survey is addressed to directors of all businesses with 10 or more employees and certain minimum assets across the United Kingdom that have recent information included in “FAME”, a large public domain company database.
You were chosen as a senior representative of your business (which is within the sampling frame of our study covering all businesses with 10 or more employees), and because your contact details are included in Bureau van Dijk’s FAME database of UK businesses or other public domain company data sources accessible via Hunter IO.
The last major survey of this type was carried out in 2009. The survey is designed to inform policy and research about the role of universities in the UK innovation system. It is intended as an extension of the approach of the Office of National Statistics’ bi-annual UK Innovation Survey, which focuses on a broad range of sources of information on innovation and innovation practices. Developing and implementing a specialised survey of businesses’ interactions with universities will provide a much greater depth of understanding than is currently available from existing surveys.
Our goal with these questions is to gain a good understanding of your organisation and possible links between university interactions and these broader aspects of innovation activity.
The value of the survey for academic and policy purposes increases with the number of complete responses that we receive. Of course, it is the sole discretion of a respondent to decide whether they wish to reply to any question included in the survey. Should you want to not answer a particular question just leave the respective fields blank or unmarked and proceed to the next question or page.
The survey is intended to be completed by the recipient of the invitation but they may call on others if the recipient believes it would help inform the answers. However please do not forward the link in your invitation to anyone outside your business.
Technical questions
No.
In order to administer the survey CBR will collect, use, store, and transfer different kinds of personal data derived principally from the FAME database and based on Companies House data in the public domain. This includes identity data including first name, last name, and contact data including work address, email address, and telephone numbers. All such data will be used in accordance with GDPR regulations of the University of Cambridge.
This personal data is used purely for the administration of the survey and is stored separately from the survey responses and will not form any part of the analysis of survey responses. It will be deleted entirely once the survey data collection closes.
Further details of the privacy policy are contained in the Participant Information: Privacy policy on the project website. Access this via the tabs at the top of this page.
Yes – your answers to the survey questions will be treated in the strictest confidence and analysed in keeping with the research integrity, and GDPR guidelines of the University of Cambridge.
They will be analysed in anonymised form so that the organisation to which they refer and the person responding cannot be identified and will be used for research and policy development purposes only. Published findings will only be presented in aggregate form so that no individual response can be identified. Nor will any organisational response be identified.
Further details of the privacy policy are contained in the Participant Information: Privacy policy on the project website. Access this via the tabs at the top of this page.
If you do not wish to take part, you can opt out of the survey by following the opt-out link at the end of the invitation email. You can also contact our project team at any stage at busurvey@cam.ac.uk to let us know that you do not wish to take part. We will then remove you from the contacts list at the earliest possible opportunity.
The full dataset including organisational identifiers but excluding personal data will be accessible at CBR only to the members of the survey team under the provisions of the GDPR guidelines of the University of Cambridge. CBR will deposit a fully anonymized dataset with no personal details of respondents and no organisational identities at the UK Data Archive.
In addition, NCUB as the body commissioning the survey will establish a “Secure Data Lab”, following the example and guidelines of the UK Data Service in which a copy of the full dataset prepared by CBR will be deposited. NCUB may grant access to the Secure Data Lab to third party analysts including UK Research and Innovation, an executive non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and established under the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (which brings together the seven Research Councils, Innovate UK and Research England (formerly the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)); The Secure Data Lab will enable approved and certified analysts (data users) at Research England and UKRI to have controlled access to the full dataset. NCUB will ensure that there are robust protocols in place with designated and separate roles controlling access to and management of the data. Only aggregated results can be reported from the data and no organization or individual will ever be identified.
Further details of the privacy policy are contained in the Participant Information: Privacy policy on the project website. Access this via the tabs at the top of this page.
While the survey is still active the data are stored on a secure server within the network of the University of Cambridge. The data are password protected and can only be accessed by members of the project team. Upon completion of the survey all data will be removed from the survey server and kept in anonymised, secure, and password-protected form at CBR and a copy transferred to the NCUB Secure Data lab. Personal data used in the administration of the survey will not be stored and will be deleted form the survey datasets. The remaining data be held confidentially and will not be used at CBR for anything other than academic purposes or at the NCUB Secure Data lab for anything other than academic and policy analysis. All CBR held data will be stored and analysed according the GDPR guidelines of the University of Cambridge and the data held at the NCUB Secure Lab Data will be managed and processed using UK Data Archive procedures and in accordance with relevant provisions of GDPR regulations. Survey responses at the CBR and NCUB may be linked confidentially to other public domain sources of business information for policy development and academic research purposes. (e.g. patents, scientific publications, Companies House data). Only aggregate analysis will be published from this information and no individual or organisation will be identified in any of the research or policy outputs.
A participant information sheet on privacy policy and a GDPR notice relating to processing personal data are available on the project website. Access this via the tabs at the top of this page.
Our privacy policy and data management procedures ensure that no analysis of the survey data can be used to identify a individual respondents or organisation. A participant information sheet on privacy policy and a GDPR notice relating to processing personal data are available on the project website. Access this via the tabs at the top of this page.
If you experience any problems in accessing the survey link please contact our project team at: busurvey@cam.ac.uk.
Output
Reports
Hughes, A., Kitson, M., Salter, A., Angenendt, D. and Hughes, R, (2022), The Changing State of Business-University Interactions in the UK, 2005 to 2021, National Centre for Universities & Business (NCUB) and Centre for Business research (CBR), available at: https://www.ncub.co.uk/insight/the-changing-state-of-business-university-interactions-in-the-uk-2005-to-2021/
Datasets
Hughes, A., Kitson, M., Salter, A., Angenendt, D. and Hughes, R, (2022), Survey of Business University Interactions in the UK.
Media
Kitson, M. ‘Local focus for university-business links in UK ‘too narrow’ Times Higher Education, 24 March 2022
Kitson, M. ‘Future economy relies on greater business-university interaction’, Imperial College, London, 24 March 2022
Kitson, M. ‘Greater business-university collaboration will reap rewards’, Centre for Business Research University of Cambridge, 28 March 2022