Q&A with KTP Associate: Joe Morecroft

Posted on April 6, 2020 by Liz Johnson

Name: Joe Morecroft

Role: KTP Associate for Extech Cloud

Project details: 2 year project which aimed to develop and implement a transformative and disruptive business innovation strategy. New knowledge was brought into the company from academics from the University of Brighton Business School, via the KTP Associate, Joe.

Why do you think KTPs are important?

It’s beneficial for all three parties – the university, the company and the Associate. The company has access to knowledge from top-tier academics, the university gets access to industry and real challenges, and the Associate benefits from both. Everyone mutually benefits.

How did you find out about the KTP scheme and the job opportunity?

Luck! I was speaking with a family friend, who just so happened to be working with KTPs as one of the academics. She was giving me career advice, and after a while the KTP came up in conversation. It interested me, so I applied and luckily, I was hired!

How did the KTP offer you something different?

The benefit of the KTP is that you have the backing of the University and academics. They help you with evidence-based knowledge, rather than ‘best practice’ myths. It allows you to then apply tools and models in industry and see real outcomes.

How did you use your personal development budget?

I used it for training, notably with a course called Aware Competitive Intelligence and a mini-MBA in Marketing. Both were excellent. The personal development budget was one of the best things about the KTP.

What was the most enjoyable aspect of being an Associate?

The conversations with the academics and learning from them. Spending a few hours each week with both my mentors was hugely beneficial to me and my career. To work with the academics was one of those opportunities that are rarely comes along in life, and I was fortunate enough to have that for two years.

What are you hoping to do next in your career?

Take what I learned from the KTP, improve it and use the experience to continue developing my career.

How would you describe your KTP experience, in three words?

Paul Levy’s biscuits. We could always depend on our lead academic to always bring biscuits to meetings and quarterly reviews to get the discussion going!

Why would you recommend KTP to other graduates?

There are several benefits that come with being a KTP Associate: mentors, personal development budget, university access etc. Use the time wisely to develop yourself and make the most of the benefits that come with being a KTP Associate.

Find out more about being a KTP Associate on the graduate page of our website, or see the business pages for more information on the scheme.

Using data mining to Do things better

Posted on August 29, 2017 by Liz Johnson

– By Billiejoe Charlton, KTP Associate, Do Something Different

As part of my KTP work with Do Something Different Ltd and University of Brighton, I recently attended and presented a paper at the 7th International Digital Health Conference in London [link: http://www.acm-digitalhealth.org/ ]. Held at 30 Euston Square – the headquarters of the Royal College of General Practitioners – the conference offered the opportunity to disseminate the scientific findings from my KTP project to an interested and knowledgeable audience, and raise awareness of the vital work that Do Something Different [http://www.dsd.me/] is doing to help people change their lives for the better. It was also a wonderful chance to network with like-minded professionals from a wide variety of backgrounds, and learn about exciting new developments in the field of Digital Health.

The theme of the conference was “Global Public Health, Personalised Medicine, and Emergency Medicine in the Age of Big Data”, and it attracted experts from many fields, including medicine, disaster management, sensor technologies, data mining and social marketing. Kicking things off was Dr Oliver Morgan from the World Health Organisation, whose fascinating keynote asked, “How can we make better use of data to protect people’s health and save lives?”. Dr Morgan described the WHO’s development of a new global surveillance system for disease outbreaks, which will bring together data from national public health systems as well as from less structured sources such as news and social media reports. This set the tone for an event where the focus was firmly on using emerging technologies not for the accumulation of profit but for the benefit of all.

The research I presented is about how we have used data mining techniques to improve the behaviour change programmes delivered by Do Something Different. Each such programme consists of a series of personalised “Dos” – small recommended activities to help people practice behaving in new ways and break their habits. These behavioural prompts are delivered by a smartphone app, or by SMS or email. The approach is based on decades of psychological research, and programmes have been designed to address many personal development goals, such as smoking cessation, stress reduction, better diabetes self-management, leadership skills and so on.

A slide from my presentation: Dos are prompts for small actions, delivered by smartphone, designed to help people change their behaviour.

In our research we have applied data mining techniques to interaction data and psychological questionnaires from a sample of Do Something Different’s users. Our data set included information about 15,550 people who have taken part in a Do Something Different programme. Using correlation networks and regression models, we were able to construct a new, more precise model of the connections between the behaviours promoted by Do Something Different and a person’s wellbeing and happiness. This has led us to refine the contents of the programmes. The paper, titled Using Data Mining to Refine Digital Behaviour Change Interventions [link: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3079468 ], is co-authored with John Kingston, Miltos Petridis and Ben (C) Fletcher. Interested readers can try out Do Something Different today by going to https://dsd.me/get-started/.

My presentation was in a session on Study Metholodogies, which also featured a fantastic talk by Emily Keane from charity Save The Children, about the use of a smartphone app in the treatment of malnourished children in Africa. The app replaces paper-based child registers for recording data, and guides the health worker step-by-step through the treatment protocol, so that no steps are inadvertently missed. Video illustrations show how to correctly measure a child’s mid upper arm circumference, a key indicator in assessing nutrition, which is frequently performed incorrectly.

Away from the talks, some exciting technology was on display. I was particularly impressed by the Advies.chat system (http://www.soaaids.nl/en/advieschat), a “chatbot” advice tool that offers free and anonymous advice about sexual health and STI testing to young people, based on clinical guidelines. The developers note that “over 20 years of experience in one-on-one counseling via telephone, e-mail and direct message chat about STIs, HIV, testing and prevention were manually translated into structured responses to common questions”. This approach was thought-provoking for me, as Do Something Different is currently exploring ways to improve its user interaction experience.

I returned from the conference having made useful contacts, and more motivated than ever to work on my KTP project, where we are continually looking for new ways to use technology to help people make the changes they want in their lives, and be happier and more fulfilled. I hope to attend the conference again next year, and present further discoveries from analysing data about behaviour change.

– Billiejoe Charlton, KTP Associate, Do Something Different

What is a KTP Associate?

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Liz Johnson

A KTP Associate is the graduate who is leading a KTP project. KTP is short for Knowledge Transfer Partnership, which is a scheme that has been running throughout the UK for over 40 years.

The scheme matches up businesses who have a need to innovate, develop and grow, with a university who has the expertise to help them do so. Once the project team is formed, the university recruits a graduate to deliver the project, under the supervision of the company and the academic team.

On top of an annual salary, Associates also get a dedicated training budget of £2,000 per annum. You’ll have responsibility from day one and the potential to gain a permanent job with an innovative company (approximately 78 per cent of graduates are offered employment at the end of a KTP).

Every year, Associates are also invited to the annual KTP Associates Conference. Carlotta Giussani, KTP Associate for a KTP project with the Sourcepark in Hastings told us:

“The KTP Associates Conference in Birmingham was absolutely great experience. It was great opportunity to network with the other Associates and to hear more about other KTP Associates projects and experiences.”

Find all current job opportunities on the national KTP website here: https://info.ktponline.org.uk/action/search/partnership_vac.aspx

5 Reasons to be ‘Appy

Posted on May 22, 2017 by Liz Johnson

KTP company Do Something Different (DSD) seek to make the world a better place by inspiring millions of people to do something different through behaviour change programmes. Clients are sent personalised ‘dos’ which aim to take the individual out of their comfort zone, breaking the habits which prevent them reaching their full potential and developing behavioural flexibility.

KTP Associates Billiejoe Charlton recently posted on the blog for his company DSD to tell us about their new app which you can log into every day to log how you feel on the ‘happy tracker’. Why use the app? App users give on average 4.07 stars out of 5, vs 3.67 for non-app users, suggesting they have a better overall experience. You can read Billiejoe’s full blog post here: https://dsd.me/2017/03/15/5-reasons-to-be-appy/

DSD have amassed a wealth of data from delivering programmes over the years – this KTP project seeks to apply machine learning to optimise their programmes to help the company expand and grow.

The KTP Associate Conference 2015

Posted on June 22, 2015 by Liz Johnson

The KTP Associates Conference has been hosted successfully at the University of Brighton for a number of years, providing a great opportunity to celebrate the successes of KTP and provide networking and presentation opportunities for Associates.

This year’s 2015 Conference marked the beginning of a new era for the event which has been handed over to the KTP community and will be hosted by a different UK university each year.

This year, the Conference was hosted by the West of Scotland KTP Centre, at the University of Strathclyde’s newly opened Technology and Innovation Centre.

Sue Fleming and the five University of Brighton Associates who travelled to Glasgow to attend the event

Around 130 people registered to attend, including 20 oral presentations and 35 poster presentations. The quality and variety of both presentations and posters was impressive and inspiring, really demonstrating that KTP delivers fantastic outcomes for all three partners – the companies, the universities, and of course, the Associates.

We were particularly delighted that one of the University of Brighton’s Associates, Andrew Black, was awarded the best poster prize, against stiff competition from over 35 other posters presented at the event. Andrew’s KTP is with Hove-based Class Of Their Own – one of the UK’s largest out of school care provider – on a 2 year strategic marketing project in which knowledge from a team from the Brighton Business School, led by Senior Lecturer Jane Priddis, will be transferred to guide research to underpin the growth of the business by developing additional complementary services and expanding into new geographical areas.

Tanya Petherick, Director at Class Of Their Own says “We are delighted that Andrew won the recent poster competition. Andrew worked extremely hard to create an eye-catching, easy to understand poster and developed an engaging short presentation about the project. So far we have been extremely impressed with the entire KTP process. In Andrew, we have an Associate who is the perfect fit for our company – he is bursting with enthusiasm yet not afraid to spend time gathering data for our internal marketing audit. We have had incredible support from the University of Brighton and KTP Adviser. All in all, we’re very happy not only to win the poster competition but to be part of the KTP process.”

Andrew Black receiving his award for Best Poster presentation.

Andrew said: “The conference was a fun opportunity to meet new ‘KTP-ers’ from all over the country, as well as catching up with friends from my KTP residential training modules. It was really useful with some really interesting presentations; especially showing just how diverse the different kinds of KTP projects are! Winning the poster competition was great! I find my KTP really exciting and it’s nice to know other people do too!”

Sue Fleming joined the five Associates from the University of Brighton who travelled up to Scotland to attend and support the event, and who between them, delivered one oral presentation and four poster presentations.

KTPA Conference Poster – Andrew Black, Class Of Their Own
KTPA Conference Poster – Joe Vella Wallbank, HiTek Power
KTPA Conference Poster – Ruixiao Yu, Colony101
KTPA Conference Poster – Farzad Barari, Ceres Power
KTPA Paper Stelios Moschos, Travel Places: “Re-engineering of a Tightly Coupled Legacy Enterprise System: A KTP project between Travel Places and University of Brighton”

The 2016 Conference will be hosted by Coventry University and we look forward to seeing the Conference grow from strength to strength, and to celebrating more KTP Associate successes.

Launching my graduate career with KTP: Adam Masters

Posted on November 7, 2014 by Liz Johnson

I applied for the role of Eco-Retrofit Manager (KTP Associate) as part of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership between The University of Brighton and the Guinness Partnership. It seemed to be the perfect opportunity to gain first hand experience in industry whilst maintaining support from an academic institution and gaining further qualifications. It did not disappoint! In the two year of my KTP I have attained a Master of Science degree, a Certificate in Management and passed a qualification to become a member of the Association of Project Managers to name just a few, all whilst being paid a full time wage.

It certainly wasn’t easy to fit in all of that work and additional qualifications, there were a lot of long days and nights juggling study and work; however I am sure that the opportunities that were presented to me during my two year KTP would not have been available in any other type of job. It feels like I have been given a head start to my career, having the experience and qualifications of somebody who has been working in industry for at least 5 years. My role within the Guinness Partnership was to run a two year pilot project to improve the energy efficiency of six of the organisation’s offices and develop a plan to rollout energy reduction across the remaining offices. Working closely with my company supervisor, Victoria Moore Head of Sustainability and Lead Academic Dr Jon Gates an expert in energy reduction we evaluated the current energy performance of the offices and selected six offices to improve that would provide the greatest learning. By retrofitting these six offices and implementing behaviour change initiatives we were able to make circa £50,000 annual savings and develop a strategy for the rollout of retrofit across the remaining office stock. I now feel as though I am an expert in my field, being invited to talk at national exhibitions and conferences to share my experience.

It is extremely satisfying to see a project such as this through to completion and to witness the benefits of your hard work. Upon completion of my KTP, The Guinness Partnership created a new permanent role which I successfully applied for meaning another smooth transition from one role to another role with additional responsibilities and the opportunity for further personal development. However, regardless of whether the company partner is able to employ the Associate at the end of their contract, I believe that the experience and qualifications that a KTP Associate would hold would make them an extremely strong candidate for any job within their field.

Adam Masters, Sustainability Manager, The Guinness Partnership

Life post-KTP: Burns Research Charity to Diesel Tuning – Richard Allin

Posted on November 6, 2014 by Liz Johnson

When I began my KTP with the University of Brighton and Blond McIndoe Research Foundation, the 2 year completion date of the project seemed far away and something that I rarely considered until my final 6 months began and suddenly the reality of making the next step became that more real.

I had an idea of location and the type of work I wanted to do post KTP, but I realised my current CV was in need of a serious overhaul to reflect all the work that I had undertaken since the start of the project.

The KTP benefits log was a very helpful source of examples for this and I would have spent significantly more time trying to remember everything I had done since the start had I not managed to fill it in as part of the review meetings.

For the last 3 months of the project I was regularly job scanning, revising my CV, preparing applications and submitting them to a variety of jobs to direct employers and, unfortunately, recruitment agents who seem to hold the bulk of advertised jobs. My previous experiences with agencies had not been encouraging, and they continued to be disappointing, maintaining my suspicions that many advertised jobs do not exist and act as a CV harvesting scheme.

I had some fall back temporary employment in case I did not manage to make a straight jump from the KTP to my next job but looking back I would advise serious job hunting 6 months from the end if you know your KTP host company does not have a position for you.

Fortunately in the last 2 weeks of my project I was offered interviews from two companies that were very much at opposite ends of the scale. One, a multinational corporation in the agricultural sector and the other a small company specialising in digital diesel tuning products.

Neither role asked for a presentation, which surprised me, but I felt bringing something to show on my iPad would help me put across my skills and experiences much more effectively. I had previously undertaken lots of presentations for my KTP so it didn’t take long to put something together. I thought both interviews went well and was pleased that I could fall back on many examples of demonstrating skills and outcomes through the KTP project.

The training budget and academic support over the past 2 years had also enabled me to develop new knowledge and understanding that proved to be a key factor in securing my current role.

Shortly after being interviewed, the diesel tuning company offered me their role of Marketing Executive and I accepted before waiting for an offer from the multinational as it felt more of a natural fit for me.

Two months in I am currently focusing on planning our new website build and developing SEO strategies for our current site, but I’m also working on everything from new packaging to getting magazine features to planning events and managing the social media, and literally using the skills I developed in the KTP every day!

KTP: Migrating a legacy software system through Architecture Recovery – Nour Ali

Posted on November 6, 2014 by Liz Johnson

Our KTP project is about re-engineering the software system of Travel Places (http://www.travelplaces.co.uk/) and migrating it into a more modernised and structured one that can be more maintainable and adaptable. The system has been developed over the last 20 years by a single developerand it exceeds 400,000 lines of code. Re-engineering the system is critical to the growth of organizations that need to meet clients’ needs, as they request new features, or catch up with the growing demand to use web, mobile and cloud enabled services. However, the migration process is complex as legacy systems are not manageable as often they do not follow a well-defined structure, are not documented, and are implemented in abandoned technologies – for these reasons, the company approached the university as they could not overcome these challenges without specialist expertise and support. Our KTP Proposal was submitted in April, approved in May. We advertised and interviewed over summer and in September our KTP Associate Stelios took up his role as Software Development Architect which involves him leading and delivering the project, supported by myself and Dr Roger Evans.

The project will redesign and redevelop Travel Places’ system into a more structured one that follows well defined architectural patterns and a service oriented architectural style, this involves applying a tool and techniques that I developed during my postdoctoral research. The main two key challenges of the project are: 1) To migrate the system without affecting clients, users and external systems that it interacts with 2) To identify parts of the legacy system which can be reused and other that have to be redeveloped. To achieve this goal, we are applying software architecture recovery techniques and tools that will allow us to find out how the software is structured, and subsequently define a new software architecture that is based on reusable architectural patterns and services.

For me as a new comer to the UK and as a researcher starting my career, the KTP project allows me to be in contact with a local-based company that provides a real world scenario to apply my research results and validate them. At the same time, this work has inspired my research towards new directions and has given me the opportunity to focus on interesting new case studies. This will help me to demonstrate the impact of my research and reflect continuously on it; I expect to generate publications from the KTP too. From another perspective, the KTP project provides the resources that allow the establishment of a group formed by academic staff, a recent graduate (KTP Associate) and industry staff which creates an excellent research environment to develop and discuss new ideas. Also, the supervision of the KTP Associate is very rewarding as eventually he will become an expert in the area.

I would recommend Knowledge Transfer Partnership projects for academic staff at all different stages of their career. Their flexible nature allows researchers to define short term objectives that can be easily adaptable and realistic.

KTP Team From Left to Right: Dr. Nour Ali-Knowledge Base Supervisor, Mr. Jeffrey Best – Industry Supervisor, Mr. Stelios Moschos- KTP Associate, Dr. Roger Evans- Academic Lead

Retail KTP boosting the charity sector – Harvey Ells

Posted on November 5, 2014 by Liz Johnson

Myself and Chris Dutton (a fellow retail academic) are three quarters of the way though our most recent retail KTP. This time, we are working with St Wilfrid’s Hospice (Eastbourne) but have previously had successful partnerships with The Seafood Restaurant (Padstow) Ltd (better known as Rick Stein’s) (Retail and Hospitality), Pordum Foods Ltd (Hot food vending) and Spring Barn Farm near Lewes (Farm Shop start-up.) final quarter is always an exciting time in these ESRC/ Innovate UK (previously TSB) funded projects as the first year is very much about implementation and systems. By comparison, in the second year we then move in to intensify the knowledge transfer components and finely tune the retail management and marketing elements. The second year also allows us to measure and reflect on the range of benefits that we can leave the organisation with and identify what each of the project partners have learned from the process.

Why retail needs knowledge transfer

Most owner/managers as retailers are passionate about what they do and have great ideas and ambition for growth, but at times, their entrepreneurship and drive doesn’t readily translate into mainstream retail merchandising, new product development (NPD) or marketing strategies. This is where we can provide the expertise. By combining our work experience with the academic elements, including Retail BA and MSc teaching we have found that we can help the SMEs that we work with to do things better for their customers, ultimately making more profit as a result. What is also particularly pleasing is that increasingly, the UK Government is recognising the value of a quality retail offer to the national economy whether it be from a multiple, SME or start-up business perspective. Last year there was a specific ESRC call for retail KTPs as a result.

Successes and achievements

These projects are not for the faint-hearted as they do require a lot of planning and if you get it wrong it can have serious consequences for the businesses you are working with. That said, because Chris and I understand the retail mind-set, talk lots about retail and love a challenge (and there are plenty!) we have never found it to be a problem. In fact, KTP gives us a real buzz, whether it be from a new initiative, a good set of sales figures or provision of a general highlight to incorporate into our teaching. We’ve achieved the top ‘A’ grade for all of our completed retail partnerships to date, this being a real achievement for the university and our course profiles. KTPs also give us raw materials to publish from which we are getting better at over time. The university also runs a yearly KTP Associates conference that allows us to network with the KTP community and update them on our activities.

Making a difference to the classroom

Knowledge transfer is not a consultancy exercise – it’s a mutually beneficial three-way partnership between the company, the university and the Associate. Our experience of working on KTPs has given us lots of new material to incorporate in to our teaching, even to the point where we ask students to write a case study application centred on the outline bid process, as part of our Level 5 undergraduate Retail Management in Action Module. The students find this novel pedagogic delivery which is more aligned to working in collaboration in industry to be a challenge ….but it works! Having this timetabled at the end of the second year really pulls together the content of the first 2 years of their studies in preparation either for their critical final year or their time out on placement. Our External examiners regularly highlight this as a good example of best practice.

The Partnerships

The other great thing about KTP is that you get to work with a load of really interesting specialists whether it be the KTP Advisors, the University of Brighton KTP Centre or the company partners. But the most important group that we work with are the recently qualified graduate Associates, who make up the backbone of KTP. They are amazing individuals, with loads of energy and ideas – we reckon that KTP gives them the equivalent of 5 year’s mainstream retail experience condensed into a traditional 2 year KTP project. A good Associate is a key ingredient in making a project successful. Once the project is complete, they go on to do really great things, often with the company partner, which is why we always prompt our final year students to think about KTPs as their first graduate destination.

In Summary

It’s never been so good to get out of the office… give a KTP a try!

Harvey Ells, Principal Lecturer in Retail and Food Studies

My KTP experience – Sally Darbyshire

Posted on November 5, 2014 by Liz Johnson

PROJECT

I was a KTP Associate between 2010 and 2012 with the University of Brighton and Mooncup Ltd. The project involved developing a new product for Mooncup and a new product development process to allow them to continue to methodically develop products, marketing campaigns and packaging after I had finished the 27 month project. As a product design engineering graduate, this job was an excellent opportunity to use my new qualification and skills in a real project within both industry and a university setting.

My project in particular included a wide multi-disciplinary team at the university because of the complexities of researching and designing the product. Mooncup, who sell an environmentally friendly alternative to disposable tampons and sanitary towels, wanted to expand their product range in order to appeal to slightly different market. The several elements involved in designing this product meant the project required a team of academics to reflect the potential areas this product could develop into, this included Textiles, Marketing, Science and Design. Between the university who could provide expertise in all of these areas, and Mooncup’s knowledge of the market and their customers, we had lots of useful and valuable information to help me deliver the project.

CHALLENGES

I uncovered a wealth of information in working with so many academics, however it also meant that time was often limited and though the meetings were very insightful, it was often hard to break down the information which would help me develop real solutions. Occasionally because of this, focus on the product and the timescale of the project became unaligned and I needed to re-focus my work. I overcame this challenge by using a project time line which helped me to see what needed to be achieved in the short and long term, broken down into manageable tasks. This challenge also helped me develop as a project manager; I began to assess more carefully when I needed information and advice from certain academics rather than communicating with them on a regular basis.

The other learning curve for me was discovering the complexities in producing a textiles product in the UK using sustainable and environmentally friendly materials. As the textiles industry in the UK has declined over the last few decades, there were a limited number of manufacturers who were able to help develop the product for larger scale manufacture. As the materials also proved difficult to source locally, which was an important aspect for Mooncup, I adapted my approach in order to find materials as close to home as possible.

BENEFITS OF KTP

The benefits of working on a KTP project for the product meant the outcome was well rounded and all options had been considered – in using the experience, insight and knowledge of the university academics and the company’s employees, the whole project was much richer than it would have been if I had been an individual working alone.

Another benefit to working on a KTP project for me was having a very generous personal development budget on top of my salary. This was hugely important for me as it gave me the opportunity to undertake training in areas I had little or no experience in.

EXPERIENCE

As a first job after graduating, I found the support from both the university and the company extremely encouraging throughout the project. Managing a 27-month project for the first time was quite a daunting task but having not only support from the project team but support also from the KTP team and advisors gave me the confidence to run the project successfully. Having regular project meetings helped me structure the product development process to ensure I was meeting deadlines.

I’m working on a few ventures at the moment; developing the family farm business and also setting up various ‘food swap’ events in Scotland. Working through the challenges and successes of the KTP project, I have gained experience which has set me up for future employment and I hope that one day soon I will be running my own business!

Sally Darbyshire, Mooncup KTP Project

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