Using Data Insights to Evaluate Your Portfolio 

We track all the activity generated through Inpart to help universities gain a clear and detailed view of industry engagement with their technologies – from initial reads, subsequent repeat engagement, and the resulting conversations in the form of introductions and feedback. We then present the collected data on the Data Insights page of your university dashboard. This is updated daily to ensure universities can stay abreast of their latest technology engagement.

These Data Insights can provide a foundation for evidence-based strategic decision-making in technology development and commercialisation. By analysing real-time industry engagement data with their technologies, universities can make informed decisions to help them maximise the industry engagement they receive through the platform, and may help inform decisions around patent filings, funding applications, portfolio management and technology prioritisation. 

Navigating the Data Insights Page 

At the top of the Data Insights page are several headline figures which allow for an intuitive at-a-glance assessment of how the whole portfolio is performing. 

Figure 1: A sample of industry engagement data in the form of graphs and tables from the Data Insights dashboard, with the headline figures highlighted. 

Maximum Published Technologies
Indicates the peak number of active published technologies. 

Technology Views and Portal Views
Shows the number of technology reads received and their source. To find out more about using your Inpart Portal, view our Portal Onboarding Tutorial or speak to your dedicated Account Manager.

Personalised Email Alerts
Tracks outreach for your technologies. Includes both automatic alerts and proactive matchmaking done by our Research Team.  

Followers
The number of our members following specific technologies. When the technology they follow has been updated, they will be notified.  

The Company Activity page can be filtered on a company-specific basis to look at which of your technologies companies of interest have viewed and when they viewed them. We recommend using this filtered data to help you prepare for conversations with the company to help you understand their interests and engagement patterns. Noticing recent activity, repeated views or views for related technologies may guide your approach, allowing you to tailor your discussions and follow up strategically. 

Interpreting Impact Reports and Data Insights to Boost Engagement 

Universities that use Inpart receive “Impact Reports” biannually, which display their industry engagement data through a range of graphs and tables based on the activity tracked through our website. 

There is a section in these Impact Reports where each technology is assigned an “Engagement Score”. This score represents the deviation from the expected number of contacts and feedback, based on the number of article reads during a subscription period – essentially measuring how effective a technology is at converting reads into engagement. 

A positive engagement score represents a technology with a good conversion rate of views into further interactions. A negative score, however, represents a technology with a low conversion of views into interactions. 

Using a technology’s engagement score together with filtered data from the Data Insights, Company Activity and the technology-specific Company Views pages can be an effective way to better understand engagement patterns. When analysing the data, you may wish to consider a number of different factors to inform your decision-making. 

Figure 4: The “Company Activity” page offers another way to filter and analyse data by individual companies and technologies. 

Figures 5: A breakdown of Company Views for an individual technology.  

Is your technology with a low engagement score receiving views from one company or many?  

Understanding the distribution of views can provide valuable insights into how your technology is being received. A technology receiving 10 reads from 10 different companies indicates a broad but potentially shallow interest, where many multiple companies may be interested in the area of research but may not yet see a direct fit. On the other hand, 10 views from just one company might signal a deeper interest, suggesting the technology aligns closely with their needs or strategic direction. 

Inpart performs analytics-based follow ups with frequent viewers of a technology, but information about high-view companies can factor into your strategy outside of Connect as well. The company that made 8 views on one of your techs could be a high-priority target for meeting with at the next conference you attend, or you may have the email of someone else based at the same company to gauge their interest.  

When seeing broad but shallow interest in one of your techs, we would recommend reviewing the summary and rewriting it to better focus on the target market, making it more engaging to key audience members. 

Do the companies reading your technology align with your target audience? 

Analysing which companies have – or haven’t – engaged with your technologies can help guide your approach and further outreach efforts. If there are companies that you’d expect to have shown interest but haven’t yet, it could indicate that the technology summary isn’t highlighting aspects most relevant to their needs. Adjusting the language, emphasising different applications, or tailoring the messaging to specific industries may help attract their attention. Additionally, filling in the Suggested Companies field in the technology editor can help guide the matchmaking and outreach efforts of our Research Team. 

On the other hand, if mismatched companies are engaging, this might suggest that your summary is too broad or unclear. Narrowing the focus and clarifying the intended audience can help ensure the technology reaches the right stakeholders, maximising its potential to secure meaningful partnerships.

Figure 6: The technology editor displaying the Suggested Companies field. 

When was the technology summary posted, and are the engagement metrics recent or older?  

The timing of reads and engagement can provide key insights into the current relevance of the technology to our network.  We often notice a decline in industry engagement after a technology has been on the platform for over a year, as at this stage it has likely been disseminated to all the relevant R&D leads currently in our network.  

Similarly, if most engagement activity is older, it may signal that your technology has already reached most of the relevant audience in its current form and that updates may be needed to maintain its appeal. Making updates to a technology summary can help to recapture the interest of our network. Small updates can have a large impact, and simply adding in new information about publications, patents, or stage of development can be significant enough for our team to re-approach previously interested companies. 

Data Insights provides a comprehensive, customisable view of technology performance, with valuable export and filtering tools to drive strategic decision-making.

Is there anything else you'd like to see from Data Insights? Get in touch with your dedicated Account Manager at Inpart.