Knowledge Transfer Partnerships help growing businesses innovate by addressing strategic challenges and creating technological and business value. KTPs deliver competitive advantage, building skills and capabilities. Part-funded by Innovate UK, KTPs can help catapult your business forwards.
Legacy City
A KTP is a partnership between a UK business seeking expertise, a university expert and a recently qualified high-quality graduate. KTPs last between 12 and 36 months and are part-funded by a grant from Innovate UK. The amount businesses need to contribute is different for SMEs and larger companies.
The City St George's KTP team and academics will support the business through all stages of the application and delivery processes. Collaboratively we will scope out the project, complete the application, recruit the Associate who will deliver the project, and the academic team will line manage the Associate to achieve project objectives.
These projects can be game changing and transformative for the business – each KTP, on average, delivers an increase in Net Profit to the business of £1,000,000 within 5-years post-project.
Benefits to business from KTPs
- KTPs are heavily subsidised - businesses receive a grant to cover up to 67% of project costs.
- High rate of success at application – up to 90% of submitted applications are funded (compared to many R&D grant opportunities this is hugely appealing!).
- Favourable terms for any IP generated within the partnership.
- Skills and expertise are embedded within the business so they can be exploited after the end of the project.
Core themes
KTPs can address multiple business challenges within any sector – City St George's has experience of delivering KTPs across Computer Science, Engineering, Construction, and Psychology, as well as the skills to deliver Management KTPs focusing on high-level management strategy, business performance, productivity and growth through City St George’s world-class Bayes Business School.
KTPs must be:
- Innovative – capabilities must be new to the company (and ideally new to the market).
- Impactful – project must have commercial benefit to the company (delivering ROI and increasing Net Profit).
- Based on knowledge transfer – capabilities are transferred and add to company’s value (this is NOT consultancy).
- Challenging – for the Associate, the company AND the academic team involved.
Eligibility
There are some key criteria that need to be met for a business to be eligible for the KTP programme.
Businesses and not-for-profit organisations must:
- Be UK based and of sufficient size to support the project.
- Have the financial capacity to make the required contribution to the cost of running a KTP.
- Have a long-term view and see how a KTP could impact their business over the next 5-7 years.
Specifically, businesses should be able to demonstrate at least 3-years profitable trading through published accounts and have at least 5 employees to ensure that the knowledge generated through the project can be embedded and exploited once the project ends.
Contact details
Please get in touch to discuss your ideas for growing your business and one of our KTP team will be in touch within 5 working days.
KTP news and information
Learn more about the latest KTP news and information via our blog site, plus find answers to your questions with insights from businesses and academics on our KTPs.
Case studies
We know it is sometimes hard to see how funding opportunities and support programmes can work in practice and be applied to your business context, so please take some time to look at the case studies and news articles about KTP here:
HIPER Pile system case study
Contact details
Legacy St George's
The purpose of KTPs is to unite Graduates, Academic Knowledge Bases (KBs) and businesses to inspire an innovative collaboration. Not only is this a great way to create something inventive for all parties, but also an opportunity to garner a plethora of business and interpersonal skills and enable knowledge transfer.
KTPs have a success rate of 90% when it comes to application submission. This is partly thanks to the help of the Knowledge Transfer Advisor, who will help throughout the application process. Having the support of an Advisor from Innovate UK means you won’t be doing this alone and you will be set up effectively to help you make the most out of the partnership, whether you are business looking for new knowledge and talent, or or an academic looking to collaborate with innovative companies.
KTPs are one of the world’s leading Knowledge Transfer mechanisms. With currently more than 800 active KTPs and with the involvement of more than 12000 companies in the UK during KTPs’ 45-year existence, the success lies in the partnership, and the engagement of all 3 parties.
Check out the Innovate UK webpage and KTP-specific site for more information.
Benefits of a KTP
Academic:
- Leading a rewarding collaboration with companies requiring research-based knowledge to succeed
- Business-specific teaching and research, and application of knowledge and expertise to real business scenarios
- On average 3 new research projects and 2 research papers were created for each KTP project
- Identifying new research themes and contributing to the Research Excellence Framework (REF)
- Publishing high-quality journals and conference papers.
Business:
- Acquire privileged and profitable access to the UK’s first-rate knowledge base and resources
- Embed expertise, give rise to new knowledge, encourage innovation
- Be immersed in an accelerated innovative process and the possibility of creating Intellectual Property
- Increase revenue through contact with new markets and new product development
- Benefit from the strategic input of a highly experienced KTA
Graduate:
- Use your knowledge to transform a key strategic innovation idea into reality
- The chance to manage a challenging, real-world project
- Personalise your role, as a KTP Associate – each position is unique
- Implement strategy within an innovative company
- Receive dedicated mentoring and personal development
- The opportunity to gain a professional qualifications and training
Funding and costs
A grant is established by Innovate UK to help part-fund the KTP – typically covering the costs of £80,000-£100,000. The costs covered depend on the size of the supporting business.
The grant will cover:
- 75% for not-for-profit (regardless of size)
- 67% for SMEs
- 50% for large businesses
The business will cover the remaining costs – please look into R&D tax relief to support with covering the remaining costs. Funding can be used towards the costs of supplies, the associate’s wage, training and travel reimbursement.
Eligibility
An Academic:
- Who is affiliated with a university or research organisation
- Must be the person who applies for the KTP
- Check out Academics - Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (ktp-uk.org) for benefits of KTPs for Academics
A Graduate:
- Who has achieved a 2:1 honours, or recently completed a Master’s or PhD
- Who has the right to work in the UK
- Who has the capability to lead a strategic business project
- Check out Graduates - Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (ktp-uk.org) for more information about what it’s like to be a KTP Associate
A Business:
- Who is either a company or a not-for-profit association
- Of any size and in any field
- Registered in the UK
- That can financially support the KTP
- Check out the KTP business website to see if your company’s values align with the business prerequisites: Business - Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (ktp-uk.org)
Why Work with the School of Health & Medical Sciences
- Education, training and research exclusively dedicated to medical and health sciences
- We share a clinical environment with St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- International reputation for research and innovation
- Our university-wide values, vision and strategy.
Why work with the School as a Business Partner
How we’ll benefit you:
- The only UK campus co-located in a hospital (St George’s hospital)
- Specialised and professional support from the E&I team
- Fresh perspectives from graduates alongside highly-experienced academics at our university
- Innovative ideas that could generate IP and new product development
- New connections in the field from a research perspective
- Significant potential to generate new revenue
Advantages for the Academic in the KTP
How the KTP will benefit you:
- Time constraints that are valuable to the academic are carried out by the KTP associate
- Development of new research projects
- Generates research income
- Partnering with businesses that value your expertise and allow you to transfer your knowledge to a commercial field.
- Contribute to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) with your novel research
Why work with the School as a Graduate/KTP Associate?
How we’ll benefit you:
- Develop a commercial expertise alongside highly-experienced academics at our university
- Great way to make contacts in the professional world
- Great bridge between academia and business
- Boost your professional repertoire with training and qualifications
- Expert opinion from industry specialists and academic professionals
- The only UK School based in a hospital (St George’s hospital)
- Specialised and professional support from the E&I team
Competition Deadlines
| KTP round three, 2025 to 2026 | 16 June 2025 | 17 September 2025 |
| KTP round four, 2025 to 2026 | 22 September 2025 | 26 November 2025 |
| KTP round five, 2025 to 2026 | 1 December 2025 | 28 January 2026 |
Find out more about our performance in the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF)