The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)

Pera Training helps increase commercial engagement, improve collaboration and reduce delivery costs by 25 per cent.

With a significant proportion of their 1,500 plus employees holding PhDs, brain power is hardly a difficulty for the STFC. What has been a problem is proving its value and embracing a more commercially-aware culture. Pera Training has made this happen.

Like many organisations, the STFC is under increased pressure to demonstrate the value they deliver on their government funding and commercial commissions. The problem is that making the changes to become a more commercially-savvy organisation can be difficult, particularly for those which are largely academic, like the STFC.

Pera Training was brought in to address this issue and ensure the STFC would flourish in the new harsher economic climate.

The process began by Pera Training taking 12 employees over a six month period. Taking this relatively small number of people had little impact on the STFC's immediate resource, but would prove to be hugely beneficial to the future of the organisation.

The focus of the programme provided by Pera Training was on using innovation to make significant commercial impacts on the STFC business. The training culminated with the group working on four distinct business challenges, namely:

• How to better engage with commercial businesses
• How to better exploit the value of the STFC's ideas
• How to improve collaboration internally
• How to increase the profitability of the STFC's contacts

The outcome has been a sea change to the STFC's approach to the commercial world. Huge financial and efficiency benefits are combining to demonstrate improved value for money and to help secure the long term future of the organisation.

To better engage with commercial organisations, the STFC team has developed an effective inter-organisational secondment model. To exploit the value of their ideas, the STFC team has made huge progress in managing and protecting its intellectual property. To collaborate more effectively, the STFC team is beta testing a collaboration portal which has already reduced the timescale of one project by six months.

Nothing demonstrates the success of a Pera Training programme better than the results it has helped produce. The jewel in the crown of the programme is undoubtedly the 25 per cent saving the STFC team made on the delivery costs of a £2m testing contract – a saving of £500k. To repeat this level of success across all of its activities, the STFC team is already rolling out the new methodology across all of its testing contracts.

For further information, please contact Rod Howells at

+44 (0)1664 501501

rod.howells@pera.com