MENACS blog

Knowledge Exchange and Impact (KEI) Fellowships have proven to be an invaluable resource for our researchers across Faculties and departments over the past two years.

Through this initiative, which is part of the Knowledge Exchange and Impact Support (KEIS) programme, fellows reported to have developed essential skills, gained unique experiences, and boosted their confidence in engaging in Knowledge Exchange activities.

What are our academics saying about the KEI Fellowships?

The feedback below is from 31 Fellowships awardees, out of the 57 awards delivered overall from 2023-2025.

1. Skills development

All respondents reported KEI Fellowships have enabled them to develop a diverse range of skills crucial for their academic and professional careers. These skills include:

• Project management: Learning to manage complex projects efficiently.
• Networking: Building and maintaining external and internal relationships.
• Policy engagement: Engaging with policymakers, influencing policy making pathways.
• Communications: Honing effective communication strategies..
• Public engagement: Engaging and collaborating with public stakeholders, enhancing their outreach capabilities.
• Commercialisation: Exploring commercial opportunities for research. 

2. New experiences

Fellows told us that the Fellowships have exposed them to new experiences that would not have been possible otherwise, including:

• Collaborating with non-academic partners: Partnerships with commercial/industry partners and third sector entities.
• Engaging with policymakers: Having the opportunity to interact with policymakers, contributing to policy pathways to their Impact work.
• Leveraging funding: Over 70% of 2023/24 Fellows were able to map onto other internal funding immediately and secured external support their research initiatives during project development or after completion.
• Joint publications and exhibits: Collaborative work leading to joint publications and exhibits, showcasing research outcomes.

3. Impact on work

All respondents reported significant differences made to their work by:

• Enabling interdisciplinary work: Collaborating across disciplines, enriching their research.
• Strengthening relationships: Establishing and strengthening relationships with external stakeholders.
• Supporting further KE and Impact work: Providing the foundation for ongoing KE and impact activities.
• Developing collaborative research: Initiating and developing collaborative research projects.

4. Confidence to engage in knowledge exchange activities as a pathway to achieve research impact

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of respondents reported they felt very confident the Fellowships had enabled them to engage in KE activities whilst wenty-six (26%) had expressed feeling extremely confident engaging their external stakeholders during implementation of their projects. This boost in confidence has been valuable for them to engage more effectively with stakeholders.

5. Testimonials

Here are some quotes from fellows that highlight the positive impact of the KEI Fellowships:

“This scheme is invaluable and should be preserved. For minimal budgetary outlay it has had an enormous impact on my career trajectory and redounded to the benefit also of my School and the broader University.”

"The fellowship has enabled me to collaborate with partners to create innovative responses to challenges. Having small seed funding unlocks opportunities in that it builds the momentum to work with partners."

“This is a very valuable scheme that I hope the university will continue. I am confident that it not only supports the fellow but has additional impact on the team with whom the fellow works/mentors - and in profile-building and student recruitment for the School and wider University.”

"This is a fantastic, well-executed scheme that supports researchers in creating impact beyond academia. It is a unique initiative that enables researchers to test and refine their ideas, gather evidence, and use that foundation to develop larger or follow-on projects."

“It is good to have resources to focus on KE activities as it is not currently possible to spend money on research”.

"The KEI Fellowship has provided support to engage with a young audience and communicate important topics, such as climate change. This is extremely important for education and climate action."

“It is an excellent scheme, I have not only been committed to delivering the activities and outputs from my proposal, but also having a KEI (Policy) Fellowship has inspired me beyond these key activities to develop skills in communicating research to non-academic audiences.

“I believe these types of schemes are invaluable in terms of providing the first steps of working creatively and collaboratively, opening a pathway for further work and future research bids.”

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