Judges reward exceptional impacts of KTP: business growth, innovation, transformative change and extraordinary team and individual contributions.

Following a five-year gap, the Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) is delighted to bring back the KTP Best of the Best Awards, shining a spotlight on the KTP projects that have delivered above and beyond expectation.

Applications to participate in the KTP programme require a very high standard of entry so all KTP partnerships have already met exacting criteria. For this year’s Awards only those partnerships that achieved an official grading of A or B within the specified timeframe were eligible to enter, so the quality of entries was extremely high. All categories were heavily contested. However, judges with the unenviable task of deciding between projects that excelled on many levels are now ready to reveal the outcomes of their deliberations.

“For a programme that has been running for over 40 years, it is amazing how the standard just keeps getting higher. KTP continues to raise the bar in terms of the outcomes it delivers to all three partners – Company, Knowledge Base and Associate”, commented one of the judges.

The shortlist has been drawn up:

Engineering Excellence Award - Finalists

  • company: Spirent Communications Plc; KB: University of Bath; Associate: Dr Talini Pinto Jayawardena
  • company: LMK Thermosafe Ltd, KB: Queen Mary, University of London; Associate: Harshit Porwal
  • company: Geckotech Solutions Ltd; KB: Glasgow Caledonian University; Associate: Dr Mark Jenkins

All of the winners and finalists above, with their partnership guests, will be invited to the Awards Ceremony on 2nd May at London’s Royal Society of Chemistry, where the winners will receive their trophies.

KTN Director, Colin Tattam, will host the Awards ceremony with keynote speeches from Innovate UK’s Interim Executive Chair, Dr Ian Campbell, and independent Design Advocate, Clive Grinyer.

KTP aims to help businesses improve their competitiveness and productivity through the better use of knowledge, technology and skills that reside within the UK knowledge base. They are funded by UK Research and Innovation through Innovate UK as part of the government’s Industrial Strategy. The Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) delivers the KTP programme on behalf of Innovate UK. The KTP Best of the Best Awards is a KTN Event.

KTP summary - Spirent Communications plc and the University of Bath

The KTP between Spirent Communications and the University was awarded 'Outstanding' by Innovate UK when it reached completion in January 2018, having run for two years.

Spirent has wholeheartedly adopted the simulation approach and model which resulted from the KTP, incorporating it into their customers' offering. There has been a substantial interest from the market which has resulted in multiple engagements; Spirent are currently under discussions with several potential customers to provide tailored solutions of the scintillation simulation feature.

They have identified the capability developed through the KTP as a key reason to selecting Spirent products. In several situations, the expertise provided by the University of Bath throughout the partnership has lent credibility to the new feature.

Mark Holbrow, Senior Director Positioning R&D Engineering, Spirent Communications, says:

“Looking from a Spirent perspective, the KTP, three-way collaborative partnership has delivered innovative and unique competitive advantage. This has enabled additional customer interaction, and certainly helped promote Spirent’s position as a world-wide industry/policy thought leader on concerns surrounding the vulnerabilities and resilience of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS).

"Over the two-year period it was also a pleasure to see our talented Associate, Dr Talini Pinto Jayawardena, from The University of Bath develop and flourish as she immersed herself in the day to day rigours of commercial life and product development. That progress and development, coupled with academic expertise, has ensured that 15 months on from the KTP she remains an important part of the Spirent team.”

Professor Cathryn Mitchell, University of Bath says:

"When we conducted fieldwork collecting satellite measurements from the Arctic to the Antarctic we never imagined that the research would lead to a commercial product that would make satnav systems safer for everyone."

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