Female-founded start-up launches new Knowledge Exchange software

Launchpad start-up KEVRI is set to disrupt the higher education landscape by launching its new Knowledge Exchange (KE) reporting software at the annual PraxisAuril Conference next week (6-8 June).

Recording KE activity - the myriad interactions between universities and external partners - is currently a complicated and fragmented process that leads many organisations to under-report the impact of their partnerships with businesses, the public, third sectors, and local communities.

KE is an integral aspect of higher education, a process that KEVRI simplifies by making automatic connections between the KE activity and the various frameworks, saving KE practitioners and academic staff time, and allowing them to maximise the impact of their activities.

The KEVRI software comprises of two key elements:

• a KE tool which supports academics to match their activity to the most relevant fundraising framework and report the key attributes of their activity such as hours worked, or organisations engaged
• a reporting software which helps universities to analyse their institutional KE performance and enhance reporting to funding and performance frameworks, like England’s Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF)

After a year of research to understand the challenges and requirements of universities, whilst being hosted in the Falmouth University Launchpad Venture Studio, KEVRI is now launching its web-based platform at the largest KE event of the year.

The team has completed its first phase of beta trials. KEVRI CEO Natalie Campion said: “Throughout this beta-test period we gained valuable feedback from vice-chancellors, KE leads and academic staff that helped us shape our product around the needs of our university users. Now, we have the unique opportunity to showcase our latest release with increased analytics capabilities to conference attendees in Brighton.”

Oxentia, a leading innovation consultancy, is also supporting KEVRI to progress their unique KE solution and develop a bespoke set of impact metrics aligned to government research and educational goals.

This partnership supports KEVRI’s long term mission of improving how funding bodies and universities work together to enable a more coherent environment that facilitates increased innovation and celebrates KE successes.

“I can see how KEVRI could provide not only a useful way for academic staff to capture their activity but valuable additional information on previously under-recorded but vitally important work that universities do, especially when no money or contracts are involved.

"It’s great to see KEVRI pushing the boundaries when it comes to KE data capture, with some really exciting future developments around, for example, student-led activity and ED&I, which are largely absent from the current datasets,’’ said Oxentia Principal Consultant Hamish McAlpine.

KEVRI will be exhibiting at the main networking hall at the PraxisAuril Conference 6-8 June in Brighton. They will also be presenting at the University Industry Innovation Network (UIIN) Conference in Amsterdam 13-15 June.