Dr Nola Hewitt-Dundas
Biography
Dr Nola Hewitt-Dundas is a senior lecturer in innovation at Queen's University Belfast, UK. Her research interests are centred on innovation, and in particular the identification of those factors contributing to innovation success in businesses.
Nola also conducts research on government policy to promote innovation and determine the effectiveness of this on regional economic development. Other research interests include the evaluation of public support for innovation and technology transfer, entrepreneurship, and small business strategy. To date, she has been involved in over 20 externally-funded research projects worth in excess of £1.5m.
She has acted as an international expert to the World Bank and provided advice to industrial development bodies in Ireland and the UK. She has published two books, four monographs, and a number of book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed academic journals.
Project: Exploring the scale and nature of university-business engagement in the UK
Traditional conceptions of innovation as a linear process have now been replaced by the recognition of innovation as a multidirectional and iterative process, involving many actors. Aligned to this, awareness is growing of the potential role of universities as actors in this iterative innovation process. This is reflected in innovation policy at national and regional levels across the UK seeking to nurture greater engagement between the academic and business communities. Yet, underlying this policy focus is a weak evidence base on the current extent of engagement between businesses and universities, the characteristics of this engagement and the extent to which the regional context as well as university characteristics influence this engagement. The proposed research seeks to address this gap in our knowledge of the extent of University-industry interaction across the UK and the factors contributing to differential levels of engagement.
Until recently, appropriate data to answer these questions has not been available, however the availability of comprehensive data on university engagement with business through the HEFCE Higher Education Business and Community Interaction Survey (HEBCI), combined with existing data sources from HESA on research investment by institution and discipline as well as the UK Community Innovation Survey (CIS4) presents a unique opportunity to explore the dynamics of university-business engagement in more detail and on a regional basis.
The research will be empirically based and while focused on the Northern Ireland economy will addresses three over-arching questions: how does the scale of university-business engagement for innovation compare across UK regions; what type of university-business relationships are found in NI and how does this compare to other UK regions; and to what extent is the scale and nature of university-engagement in NI explained in terms of the university, policy and business environment?
Findings arising from the research will be of interest to all stakeholders involved in promoting and facilitating university-business engagement in providing a better understanding of the heterogeneity of these relationships. Academics in the area of innovation and regional studies will also benefit from the research, with regional disparities in university-business engagement being highlighted through the integration of supply-side and demand-side explanations of university-business engagement.