Tim Taylor on building meaningful partnerships with business

Tim Taylor, an Associate Professor of Environmental and Public Health Economics, is based in the European Centre for Environment and Human Health at Penryn Campus. Here he discusses his experience working with businesses.

I’ve worked with businesses during my time at Exeter – initially funded by European Regional Development Funds and later through the Shared Prosperity Fund. Recent projects include helping the Cornish business iCareiMove improve product evaluation and build evidence for market expansion.

I’m an economist, so I often focus on communicating the economic benefits of new products. This includes developing evidence to inform cost-benefit analysis for decision-makers – for example, I helped the Centre for Thriving Places (then Happy City) develop a tool to value the co-benefits of wellbeing improvement.

Sometimes businesses approach me directly – particularly if they are seeking Innovate UK funding. Exeter Innovation provides contacts with businesses through ‘Researcher in Residence’ programmes funded by the Shared Prosperity Fund.

The Shared Prosperity Fund projects provide some funding for staff to engage with local Cornish businesses – offering seedcorn funding for initial groundwork, such as reviewing literature or developing ideas for larger projects.

It’s important to be realistic with businesses and communicate what can and can’t be done within the funding window. For example, with iCareiMove, we conducted reviews and offered advice but didn’t have the resources for data analysis. However, we are exploring ways to fund future work with them.

A major challenge in working with businesses is time – it’s important to nurture relationships and clarify when you can deliver. Businesses are often time-poor but need information quickly, so it’s important to manage expectations. Sometimes it’s necessary to deliver something quickly and “good enough” rather than a perfect, peer-reviewed product.

Successes I’m proud of include knowledge exchange activity in the Smartline project. We engaged with many Cornish businesses and supported product development. There’s a thriving group of businesses working on innovative products – from the DadPad, which supports new dads, to the MyCoast app, which informs people about the coasts.

My consulting experience has helped me negotiate with businesses and understand their needs. It’s important to recognise that relationships with businesses may take time to yield standard academic outcomes like papers or grants. However, working with businesses provides a pathway to real-world impact, which is highly rewarding.