Shaping SOAS's knowledge exchange strategy
We helped SOAS turn fragmented views on knowledge exchange into a shared institutional strategys and a submission-ready HEIF Accountability Statement.
Context
SOAS is the UK's only specialist higher education institution focused on Asia, Africa, the Middle East and their diasporas, generating ~£750k in annual HEIF funding but facing a central tension between institutional pressure to grow commercial income and Research England's requirement for a genuinely balanced KE portfolio.
The KE&E team was small and in transition, with a fixed submission deadline and a real risk the statement would be drafted in a vacuum without genuine stakeholder alignment.
We engaged to design and facilitate a structured workshop with academics and KE leads across the three colleges, producing the strategic objectives at the heart of the submission.
Approach
Strategic alignment across a fragmented institution
Pre-workshop interviews with college leads revealed significant variation in how KE was understood and valued across SOAS. The workshop created shared language and a common framework, moving participants from scattered individual ambitions to a set of agreed institutional priorities.
Six draft KE objectives grounded in evidence
The workshop produced six objectives covering external engagement and business development, executive education, innovation partnerships, commercialisation, internal capacity building, and SOAS's distinctive cultural and physical assets. Each objective was mapped to Research England's growth dimensions with a logic model chain from activity through to outcomes.
A submission-ready foundation
A working draft of the HEIF Accountability Statement, structured across six strategic objectives and ready for internal review and submission.
Strategic alignment across three colleges on KE priorities, surfacing commonalities that had not previously been articulated institutionally.
A shared framework and language for KE that academics, KE leads and senior staff could all work from.
Clarity on the compliance boundary between HEIF-eligible activity and commercial delivery.
Identified quick wins alongside longer-term institutional investments, giving the team a sequenced roadmap.
Senior buy-in to build out KE infrastructure, incentive structures and business development capacity as institutional priorities for 2026–2031.