The Innogen Institute examined the role of KTN’s Special Interest Groups (SIGs) in supporting innovation across industrial sectors through their network activity.
The Knowledge Transfer Network is a network partner of Innovate UK. KTN activities focus on strengthening the UK economy and improving people’s lives, helping business accelerate their performance by using creativity, ideas and latest discoveries to support innovation more effectively.
The purpose of the project was:
• To review the role of KTN’s Special Interest Groups (SIGs) in supporting innovation across industrial sectors through networking activity.
• To analyse how the organisation, design and rational for the creation of KTN SIGs influence innovation outcomes and consider potential metrics for assessment.
• To search for relevant approaches to innovation that might be integrated into the KTN and SIGs processes.
A significant specialisation of KTN activity is the ability to convene across sectors to target specific topics, bringing together expertise from industry and academia to collaborate and innovate. SIGs were found play an important role in accelerating cross-sector innovation, encouraging SIG participants to innovate across traditional industry boundaries and breakdown knowledge silos.