This site is the JISC Business and Community Engagement (BCE) blog site. It a forum for exchange and discussion about JISC BCE and about BCE in general, which includes knowledge transfer/exchange and employer engagement.
In March 2008, JISC released the first BCE Circular which contained four Calls for funding. This site enables interactive questions and answers - a sort of online surgery - in support of the calls and those planning to submit proposals. The Circular 3/08 describes the scope of the BCE programme - comprised of 6 streams - but the Calls only reflect certain areas; other work-packages in the programme are being delivered by JISC Advisory Services or other agents; details of these will be published very soon. In 2009, second phases for several of the workpackages will commence. JISC BCE work is ongoing and being embedded on a permanent basis within all JISC operations but the initial programme of activities is from 2007-10.
Background to BCE
Business and Community Engagement (BCE) is the strategic management of interactions, partnerships and transactions with partners, clients and intermediaries external to the university, across the commercial sector, public sector, cultural landscape and the social and civic arena. It includes both ‘knowledge transfer and exchange’ (also known as ‘third stream’, in reference to the third stream of funding for HEIs after teaching and research and ‘employer engagement’.
The objective is to deliver benefits to the economy and society - and the institutions itself – which result in a more highly skilled workforce, a more efficient, dynamic and sustainable economy and a more cohesive, knowledge-enabled society. BCE typically constitutes knowledge and expertise-based services such as consultancy, CPD, regeneration or commercialisation of research. BCE includes both research-based and education-based services and is fundamentally about solving problems and providing opportunities. In the ‘knowledge economy’ this makes a key contribution to UK competitive advantage, skills enhancement and social cohesion.
In 2006, JISC was invited by its funding partners to consider how it might contribute to the developing and increasingly important knowledge transfer and exchange agenda. National strategic developments in learning and teaching policy in 2007 also brought the new employer engagement agenda into focus, as a closely related activity. Following a JISC think tank in June 2006, a range of initial third stream/BCE activities were agreed and funded.
Key deliverables (all available on the main JISC BCE website) included:
- A comprehensive User Needs Study on the needs of BCE users
- A study and report on the Use of Publicly Funded Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in BCE;
- A study and report on the issues around Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Usage in institutions;
- A range of specialised BCE outputs from JISC’s Advisory Services (see below).
The User Needs Study was a key and defining piece of work, and made a number of recommendations which, together with informal consultation with BCE stakeholders and analysis of current activities (JISC’s and those of other BCE stakeholders), have formed the basis for the targeted support in the BCE programme.
The BCE strategic theme is a new agenda for JISC (2007-09 strategy strategic aim 5 - developing and implementing a programme to support institutions’ engagement with the wider community). BCE is a cross-cutting agenda, sponsored by the JOS sub-committee; many JISC programmes contribute towards BCE strategic objectives. The JISC BCE Programme is guided and advised by the BCE Advisory Group, comprising a number of BCE experts and members of each of the JISC sub-Committees.
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