Outstanding partnership

Jun 30 2010 by Steve Race, Evening Gazette

BUSINESS-UNIVERSITY innovation in the North-east is proving its credentials with Teesside University, gaining a Grade A – Outstanding from the Technology Strategy Board for its Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with Tyneside-based Wellstream International.

Graduates and academic experts from the university helped Wellstream radically overhaul its business and management systems by introducing a total enterprise integration package.

And the two graduates involved, Michael Boyce and Robert Lee, were offered management jobs as soon as the two-year programme finished.

For Michael, 40, from Middlesbrough, going to university and then working as a KTP Associate with Wellstream proved life-changing. This autumn he will be jetting off to Rio De Janeiro to help introduce the changes which played a key part in implementing the system on Tyneside at the base in Brazil.