URN No: 00/1068
Introduction
In early 1994, TWI conceived the idea of a five year National Programme for Technology Transfer in Materials Joining, now known as “Joining Forces”, in response to changes in Government policy. The 1993 White Paper, “Realising our potential”, had set the pattern for the shift away from DTI funding of collaborative R&D in Research and Technology Organisations (RTOs).
The programme had two main objectives: to provide some assistance to TWI in the transition from reliance on direct funding of R&D to a more technology transfer oriented environment that would also create a new source of revenue; and to develop awareness and stimulate the selection, organisation and use of appropriate and state-of-the-art joining technologies by the UK SME community. It was felt that TWI was an appropriate choice of RTO to receive assistance because its expertise was cross-sectoral in nature, and because TWI was viewed as one of the more successful RTOs. TWI aimed to create a technology transfer environment that would lead to a new revenue stream as the SMEs were stimulated, by positive experience, to undertake further, fee-paying R&D activities.
Main Findings
Joining Forces was intended to enable small firms to have access to the best joining technology and to encourage them to use it. TWI planned, among other things, to provide simple, low-cost or free advice to the firms in the hope and expectation that they would appreciate the benefits of adopting best practice and follow this up with longer-term projects which would enable the programme to become commercially self-sustaining. In the course of this activity, TWI itself would also adapt to be more responsive to small firms’ needs. In the event, TWI found that the number of enquiries it received was more than expected and were costly to service, but the income-generating projects failed to materialise in the quantity required to make the programme self-sustaining. SMEs were not disposed to pay for TWI’s services where the potential benefits were not immediate.
The subsidised programme activities were popular with the SME target audience and with the Business Links, with at least 21,650 SMEs participating in some form. Of these, 78% gained some form of business benefit and 65% went on to take further action. The overall financial benefit to SMEs as a result of the programme was estimated to be £20M against costs of £17.2M (£5M from DTI) arising from general enquiries to the helpdesk, Product and Process Reviews and Feasibility Studies.
As these activities were not leading to a significant revenue stream, TWI moved away from the telephone helpdesk to the use of internet as their front line intended medium to provide low-cost advice that could be charged to the SME users.
TWI were unable to secure additional funding for Joining Forces from SMET to further develop the internet platform. They did submit a separate proposal to EID for JoinIT, with support from BT, which received approximately £1M DTI Funding.
The re-organisation of DTI mid-way through the programme and the subsequent change of DTI programme managers had a large impact on the programme. Initially, DTI management of the programme was light and supported the TWI view of the programme as experimental and open to change. However this was, even at that time, at odds with advice from within DTI during the proposal stage and with the appraisal, monitoring and evaluation sections of the ROAME statement. Monitoring was light and changes requested by TWI early in the programme were not dealt with sufficiently clearly leading to misunderstandings with the later programme managers as to the agreed deliverables. In addition, TWI produced inconsistent progress reports and financial accounts.
DTI were to provide 32.5% funding for a 5 year £15.4M programme, “pump-primed” such that the funding was to be made available during the first 3 years. The final costs of the first 3 years of the programme were £17.2M, of which DTI contributed its originally-planned amount of £5M.
The Rationale for Joining Forces has been broadly validated by the evaluation, the generic nature of joining technologies enables one single centre of expertise to cover many firms (mainly SMEs) potentially achieving economies of scale in dissemination. RTOs such as TWI are not financially equipped to undertake the market experiments necessary to establish an effective dissemination mechanism. The widespread economic benefits from raising the standards of joining technology in SMEs justify public support for the programme.
Appropriateness and Achievement of Objectives
In general, we feel that the objectives were not sufficiently robust, did not cover the longer term programme outputs, impacts to either SMEs or TWI, and were not fully testable.
Changes to deliverables did not result in the ROAME statement or original objectives being reviewed.
SMET have agreed with TWI that all the deliverables, as amended, have now been met, though TWI have yet to make all of the Best Practice Guides available to SMEs.
TWI failed to achieve an income stream sufficient to make Joining Forces self-sustaining as, in general, SMEs require low level information and advice that is difficult to charge for, and are reluctant to pay for more substantial services when the potential benefits are not immediate. However, the survey highlighted a group of SMEs who would be willing to pay for services in the future, indicating a source of income if they can be successfully identified.
The lack of development projects confirms the belief that SMEs are generally reluctant to commit resources to R&D activities.
While the anticipated income stream did not materialise, the survey results support the internet delivery route chosen by TWI as a method of providing low-level technical information to SMEs, while generating a suitable level of income. Time will tell if this model proves to be a commercially viable means of technology transfer.
The TWI conducted Product and Process Reviews, Feasibility Studies and development projects were additional, as was the helpdesk, although there may have been some displacement of helpdesk users from other sources of information and advice.
The partner-conducted Product and Process Reviews and Feasibility Studies and demonstration centres were not significantly additional.
The events and training courses were of limited additionality.
Business Links were the best source of high-quality, pre-filtered SME contacts, with a high conversion rate to Product and Process Reviews and Feasibility Studies. The ITCs regarded these services as useful and appropriate to the needs of their SME clients.
The programme has facilitated technology transfer to, and uptake by, SMEs generating benefits of £20M against total programme costs (in years 1-3) of £17.18M, with costs to DTI of £5M.
There was no clear link made by MTS between the deliverables and objectives at the start of the programme. Much of the subsequent disagreement between SMET and TWI about the role of the deliverables could have been avoided if this link had been more apparent from the outset. A clearer linkage would also have made it easier to determine if proposed changes to deliverables remained compatible with objectives.
The re-organisation of DTI mid-way through the programme had a significant effect on the programme. The resulting shift in programme emphasis at DTI away from general support for change at TWI towards direct impact on SMEs, was not in our view adequately communicated to TWI.
Prior to the re-organisation at DTI, the programme was insufficiently monitored (by MTS); there was minimal formal contact with TWI, slippages in deliverables and changes requested by TWI were not acted upon, the DTI programme files were inadequate and no records were made of telephone calls or e-mails. After the reorganisation the DTI programme managers were not receptive to changes to the programme suggested by TWI as a result of their experience with the programme. The request for changes did not prompt a thorough review of deliverables necessary to meet programme objectives.
If the original appraisal, monitoring and evaluation plans contained in the ROAME had been adhered to, particularly in the early stages, DTI would have maintained closer involvement in the content and direction of the programme.
DTI did not follow its own advice in the establishment of a Programme Management Committee or in the management of programme changes, both of which were included in the ROAME.
DTI does not have a sufficiently clear overview of the total number or costs of the various programmes it supports at TWI, or at other RTO's, nor is there any overall co-ordination of the programmes.
TWI record keeping was not of a sufficiently high quality; simple programme data could not be readily accessed and data provided in progress reports and in the course of the evaluation varied. The records need to be better organised, transparent and auditable.
TWI did not fully utilise the potential of the helpdesk database as a management and marketing tool, e.g. contact source and company size information was not collected to evaluate the effectiveness and targeting of the awareness campaign, database entries were not sufficiently tagged or updated and potentially useful contacts were not entered on the database.
TWI did not sufficiently account for the in-kind contributions of partners in terms of both cash value and content of the activities undertaken.
We recommend that:
The ROAME statement should be considered as a working management tool and referred to regularly. If the programme starts to diverge from the original ROAME it should be, at first informally, revisited and appropriately modified. Significant changes, or accumulation of changes, should be formally approved by the IPC. The evaluation section should include dates for formal re-assessment of the programme progress with respect to the ROAME.
The details of a ROAME statement should be reflected in the terms of the offer letter and its purpose should be explained to external programme managers.
DTI programme managers should review and follow up progress reports and make efforts to scrutinise the activities of programme participants to ensure that the programme is on track to meet its objectives.
IPC should consider instituting a ‘spot-check’ system as part of the continuous monitoring arrangements that will review the management and monitoring of live programmes.
Where a programme activity and its impact are cross-sectoral, a cross- directorate advisory committee should be established to ensure that all interested parties are aware of the programme activity and may have an input to the management process.
Programmes of an experimental nature should be planned and managed in distinct phases, to allow regular re-assessment of progress towards objectives and appropriate changes to be made. Alternatively, a pilot programme should be conducted.
If grant payment is tapered or ‘pump-primed’ the level of funding should be defined such that it is aligned with specific activities and timescales. Each claim for grant payment should be made against progress towards the completion of the specific activities and in line with the appropriate funding level.
The creation of ‘key contact managers’ for organisations that are recipients of several DTI grants would ensure transparency and co-ordination of the programmes, enhance communication across Directorates and avoid proposal duplication or proposals searching for a funding ‘home’.
When putting together new programmes, senior management consider the level of resource requirements for effective monitoring and programme management.
Changes to DTI programme managers would benefit from better-managed ‘hand-overs’.
