Motive Offshore Group is one of the market leaders for the supply of complex back deck equipment and services for the marine energy industry and strives to be the technology leader in our field. We had recently embarked on a joint engineering project with the University of Aberdeen and were looking for a way to continue our relationship when we were introduced to the Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP).
We already had a rough idea of the issues that we wanted to address, but this was refined during the project building process with the North of Scotland KTP Centre and the regional Knowledge Transfer Adviser. They helped us to identify that one of the major challenges of introducing transformational technologies would be adapting the working practices of the Motive team. In turn this led to a discussion between the University’s Engineering and Business Schools to consider a joint project team and include human change management activities within the KTP.
Once the funding was confirmed by Innovate UK, the University’s HR team worked with us to prepare a candidate specification and advertise the post. We knew we needed an outstanding candidate, so the application and interview process included both a written assignment and a technical presentation. One candidate stood out because of their exceptional insight and clarity; they joined the Motive team as a KTP Associate in September 2020.
Our KTP Associate has spent their first few months working with all of Motive’s key teams, to gain an understanding of the challenges faced across the whole organisation. It has been fascinating to listen to the feedback from an educated and inquisitive engineer with a very fresh pair of eyes! The KTP project is at an early stage but is already forming a strong link and information conduit between Motive and the two University departments and we fully expect our project to deliver the benefits that were described in our application.
Dr Karen Bilsland, Lecturer at University of Aberdeen Business School and Co-investigator on the project commented on the progress of the KTP with Motive Offshore Group-“Collaboration and cross-disciplinarity are integral to the success of this project and this new partnership between the Business School and the School of Engineering has already proven extremely fruitful, resulting in the identification of a number of opportunities for the knowledge base, including the development of commercially-relevant research themes and projects, business-relevant teaching materials, and research papers for submission to leading peer-reviewed engineering and management journals. We view this KTP as a springboard for rich interdisciplinary dialogue, integrative thinking and practice, with significant potential to deliver enhanced problem-solving capabilities and development of innovative solutions to business challenges.”
Bob McAlpine, Chairman of Motive Offshore Group
Are you an ambitious company looking to drive transformational change and strategic growth, enhance productivity and develop your workforce? If so, register for the University of Aberdeen Business School’s Knowledge Transfer Partnership event on 4th February 2021, 9.30am-10.30am. Full details & booking link:https://www.abdn.ac.uk/business/events/16249/
