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Teaching Company Schemes Richard Castle (University of Brighton)
This talk was illustrated with a Mind Map which was then considered in four parts
Contents
What is a TCS
What's in it for me
The company
The academics
The associate
The government
So what's the catch
But can statisticians be involved
Conclusions
When mentioning the Teaching Company Scheme (TCS) to
colleagues or business managers for the first time, they often
respond , “I suppose it’s another of the Government’s
new attempts at building links between universities and industry”.
In fact the TCS is now in its 21st year of operation and has
helped more than 2000 firms to become more profitable and
competitive. It appears to be one of those “best-kept”
secrets amongst close friends and, yet, from my experience people
who have taken part in the scheme are only too willing to sing
its praises.
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What is a TCS? Mind
Map part 1
The TCS is a Government program to build better links between
universities and industry. The objectives of the scheme are to:
To be awarded a TCS, a company must have a clearly defined project which is strategically important to the company’s future, but which needs additional skills and knowledge outside the company’s present skill base. The project could be to develop a new product or new markets, or, alternatively, it could simply be a scheme to improve productivity or responsiveness to customers.
The company must then find an academic partner who can provide
the necessary skills and between them they must draw up a project
plan and apply for a grant through the Teaching Company
Directorate.
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What’s in it for me?
The TCS offers benefits to all the parties involved - the company,
the academics, the associate and the Government.
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Mind Map part 2
The company
The company are be able to recruit high calibre graduates to work
on the project and have additional support from academics.
Additionally there is funding for equipment and training. In fact,
up to 70% of the total cost of the project will be funded by the
Government; the remainder being paid by the company.
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The academics
The TCS is a refreshing challenge for academics who can apply
their specialist skills to “real” research. It is not
always possible to come up with the ideal solution; time and
financial constraints often mean a sub-optimal solution must be
found. It is necessary to take a pragmatic approach to solving
problems which arise.
There are spin-offs from the schemes - new ideas for teaching
or topics for student projects and long-run collaboration with
the company after the scheme has ended. Internally, I have also
found that one builds new contacts with colleagues in other
university departments.
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The associate
The associates are central to the aims of the Teaching Company
Scheme.
The TCS provides an excellent opportunity for recent graduates to
experience strategic projects within a company. New graduates who
enter industry in the traditional way would be unlikely to be
given such key work or so much responsibility in their first job.
The TCS can be looked on as a “fast-track” for a career
in industry. As part of the scheme there is funding provided for
training and the Teaching Company Directorate put on special
training courses for the associates. One measure of the success
of the scheme is that the majority of graduates are offered
permanent employment with the company at the end of the scheme.
In fact, many of the graduates become senior managers within
their organisation.
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The Government
It is often overlooked that the Government benefits from the TCS;
a Government is hardly likely to support such an expensive scheme
for 21 years if it does not believe there are benefits for the
country. The Government benefits indirectly - for example, from
the increased profitability of the firms involved and from the
increased employment opportunities provided as a result of the
projects. As a long term aim the Government hopes to develop
stronger links between universities and business. They hope to
develop an enduring partnership in which companies turn naturally
to the universities for help.
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Mind Map Part 3
So, what’s the catch?
This seems too good to be true and, yet, the number of companies
and academics who know about the scheme remains relatively small.
It is not difficult to find companies who have potential projects which they wish to develop, but, too often, they wish to get started tomorrow. The time taken between a company making contact with a University and the Associate starting work can be as short as 4 months but typically the lead-time is about eight months.
The Government expect all projects to carefully planned and to receive detailed applications. If they are to give such large grants, they expect all schemes to be thoroughly planned, monitored and evaluated. Companies and universities must be prepared to plan ahead and devote sufficient resources to set up the scheme.
There is only a limited budget available for Teaching Company
schemes each year and nationally only 15% of applications are
accepted. However, it remains a proud boast that the University
of Brighton remains the only academic institution with a 100%
success rate. The secret of their success is simple - care and
attention to detail in the planning and application process.
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But can statisticians be involved?
There is no doubt that many of the projects use (or attempt to
use) statistical skills - designing and testing new products,
improving quality or reliability of products and reducing costs
all make use of statistics and, yet, it is disappointing how few
projects involve statisticians.
There are two ways for statisticians to become involved in TCS - either directly through contacts with companies or indirectly by helping academics from other departments with their own Teaching Company projects.
Historically, many of the schemes have been based on engineering and consequently most schemes within universities are centred around engineering departments. Too often, from my experience, strong bonds do not exist between engineers and statisticians. Engineers do not automatically think to call on statisticians to help them with their projects. Equally, academic statisticians do not tend to have good contacts with companies and, if a company was thinking of setting up a TCS, they would probably contact an engineering department.
It is up to statisticians to break down these barriers; they
must actively build better links with companies and with
departments within their university. They must demonstrate
that statisticians can provide additional knowledge and new
approaches to tackling what are essentially statistical problems.
The ability to communicate their ideas in a clear and simple way
is vital to their success. Only when the worth of statisticians
has been established will it be possible for statisticians to set
up their own Teaching Company Schemes.
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Mind Map Part 4
Conclusions
Teaching company schemes have benefits for all the groups
involved and statisticians should be able to participate in many
of these projects. But, it is up to statisticians to sell
themselves better - they cannot simply sit back and hope that
someone will come along and knock on their door.
