Data intelligence

In 2013/14, Heriot Watt University incorrectly reported their 2012/13 restated figures within the HEBCI data. This effected the intellectual property income (Table 4) 3aii Non-software licences income - Other (non SME) commercial businesses and 3bi Software licences income - SMEs. These should have been reported as £137K and £24K respectively.

In 2020/21, The University of Westminster incorrectly reported the number of non-commercial organisations for software only licences in Table 4b as 241. The correct value is 0.

From 2017/18 The University of Oxford's Intellectual Property income figures include qualifying income from Oxford University Press and subsidiaries, and the University's wholly owned subsidiary, Oxford Limited.

Ulster University’s Spin-offs with some HEP ownership - Estimated current employment of all active firms (FTE), increased from 791 in 2017/18 to 36,189 in 2018/19.  This increase was due to increased funding available for academic spin outs and graduate startups, with mergers and acquisitions within the provider’s portfolio also increasing their employment figures.

In 2022/23, there were decreases in the values reported by The University of Central Lancashire for the number of licences granted across various fields. The high figures observed in 2021/22 originated from an internal program that generated sales through the licencing and sale of various books. Some licences were produced by the provider licencing the books to other publishing houses. Since then, guidance on this field has been updated, resulting in the number of licences in 2022/23 dropping back to the levels observed before 2021/22.

The University of the West of Scotland are missing from the 2022/23 academic year as their data was not finalised in time for publication. Data for this provider will be included in a future update to the HE-BCI open data.

In 2022/23, Queen Mary University of London reported increases in ‘Estimated current turnover of all active firms (£000s)’, ‘Estimated external investment received (£000s)’, and ‘Estimated current employment of all active firms (FTE)’ in student start-ups and social enterprises. These increases are attributed to improvements made by the provider in their data recording process for startups and social enterprises over the past year. These enhancements have revealed errors in tracking and reporting this data in the past.

Similarly, London School of Economics and Political Science reported increases in ‘Estimated current turnover of all active firms (£000s)’ and ‘Estimated external investment received (£000s)’ in student start-ups and social enterprises in their 2022/23 return, compared to the previous year. In 2022/23 an in-house survey was developed for reporting the submitted numbers, whereas the data for 2021/22 relied on third-party monitoring.

2a) Public lectures – Academic staff time
In 2010/11 Aston University reported the British Academy of Management (BAM) Conference which was hosted by Aston University, accounting for 60 days’ academic staff time. This conference did not take place in 2011/12.

2c) Exhibitions (galleries, museums etc.) – Attendees
The British Science Festival was held at Aston University in September 2010 and the attendee data relating to this event was reported in the 2010/11 return. This event took place at an alternative venue in 2011, hence the same data was not reported in the 2011/12 return.

In 2015/16, The University of Greenwich failed to return any data for 2015/16 in Table 5, the 2014/15 restated figures are included.

Coventry University reported 11,875,132 attendances at free public lectures in 2017/18, a result of growing its media coverage and the impact of high-profile visits.

In 2018/19 De Montfort University did not record the number of individual attendees at chargeable public lectures.

In 2016/17, University of Northampton mis-reported their Spin-offs with some HEP ownership data.  Corrected values are set out below.

2016/17 Spin-offs with some HEP ownership, estimated external investment received (£000s) returned as 900,000, the correct value should read as 900.
2015/16 restated Spin-offs with some HEP ownership, estimated external investment received (£000s) returned as 950,000, the correct value should read as 950.

In 2021/22, Loughborough University incorrectly classified one spin-off as a spin-off with HEP ownership, when it should have been categorized as a former spin-off with no HEP ownership. The company was correctly categorized in the current year, 2022/23. This resulted in a decrease in ‘Estimated external investment received (£000s)’ in spin-offs with some HEP ownership this year compared to the previous one, from £31,700 to £5,233 (£000s), and a corresponding increase in formal spin-offs not HEP owned.

In 2021/22, SRUC inaccurately reported figures for ‘Estimated current turnover of all active firms (£000s)’ and ‘Estimated external investment received (£000s)’ in spin-offs with some HEP ownership in the incorrect units, £5,000 and £160,000, respectively. The correct figures are (£000s) £5 and £160.

In 2021/22, The University of Sussex saw an increase in Subtotal IP income (£000s) from 21 in 2020/21 to 1,711 in 2021/22 due to income from the sale of University shares in ReViral as a consequence of the purchase of ReViral by Pfizer.

In 2015/16, Heriot-Watt University misreported their total collaborative research income within Table 1. This figure should have been closer to the 2014/15 figure of £24,124K.

In 2015/16, Heriot-Watt University misreported their total income from Consultancy within Table 2. This figure should have been £3,275K.

In 2014/15, University College London reported in error their Total learner days of CPD/CE courses delivered in HEBCI Table 2 as 20,966. This figure should read 29,966.