A Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) between Alliance Manchester Business School and British Salt has won the Business Collaboration and Partnerships Award at the recent Educate North Awards.
In 2019, British Salt (a subsidiary of Indian-owned Tata Chemicals) called on academics at Alliance MBS to help launch a salt product, fortified with iodine in the UK. Recent Alliance MBS Masters in Marketing graduate, Elle Perschke, who works as Brand Development Manager at Tata Chemicals Europe, led the KTP from the industry side. Elle worked closely with a team of academics at Alliance MBS, led by Professor Hongwei He.
The KTP, completed in April 2020, has successfully laid the groundwork for British Salt’s ambitions to transition into the B2C market in the country. The Alliance MBS team carried out market research including focus groups, to understand consumer attitudes and identify the opportunities and challenges associated with bringing the product to market.
Presented to Alliance MBS, the Business Collaboration and Partnerships Award for the University Sector recognises an “exceptional institution or academic team engaging with one or more businesses for commercial success.” This collaboration with industry could include commercial consultancy services, development of patents or through knowledge transfer partnerships such as Alliance MBS’s winning project. The team’s win celebrates Alliance MBS’s track record of successful collaboration with local businesses and embodies our ethos of Original Thinking Applied in action.
The 2020 Educate North Awards ceremony (postponed from last year due to Covid-19), was streamed virtually on Thursday 22nd April 2021. Hosted by Jim Hancock, the ceremony celebrated best practice and excellence in the education sector in the North.
The judges were looking for institutions, teams and initiatives that demonstrated a clear impact on the economy in the North. This award is testament to the contribution of our academia and research to pioneering partnership projects with businesses at both a regional, national and global level. The panel consisted of an esteemed group of industry leaders and experts including: Professor Paul Baines (Associate Dean at the University of Leicester) Katie Bray, (Deputy Chief Executive, The North West Business Leadership Team) Phil Harris (Executive Director of the Business Research Institute at The University of Chester) and Keith Crane (Research and Insight Director, Communicorp UK).
