What is the programme about?
The Programme supports collaborative university-to-university activities which aim to develop a university-industry partnership ecosystem in East Asia (EA) that will, in time, create more research, scientific and innovation opportunities for UK.
Specifically, through this programme, we aim to:
- Support policy activities that influences EA governments to provide necessary policy infrastructure and support to stimulate university-industry partnerships
- Demonstrate UK thought leadership on knowledge exchange/university-industry
- Support and facilitate university-level partnerships between EA and UK and among EA countries that engage industry
- Through partnerships with UK, provide EA access to capacity building opportunities to learn and benefit from UK’s knowledge-exchange / university-industry
- Provide UK access to EA governments, tertiary education institutions and consortium through U-U-I partnerships
Why are we working in this area?
East Asian countries, like the UK, are driving innovation as a springboard for economic growth and increasingly looking to the role of universities in the innovation system.
In developed economies universities play a key role in harnessing opportunities for research, innovation and entrepreneurism through university-industry engagement. With the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) a key focus of national development plans, there is impetus to create a more integrated government-industry-university ecosystem, known as the triple helix.
EA countries can draw on UK universities expertise in this area. The UK has a national infrastructure that creates and exploits knowledge and supports innovation. The UK is ranked second in the Global Innovation Index and is considered one of the best countries in the world for university-industry collaborations. The UK, through its higher education institutions, has an excellent track record of research and innovation and has the world’s third largest research output and ranks highly on indicators of quality.