Case study:
How we’ve helped
UCL Innovation & Enterprise make knowledge exchange more accessible
Wendy Tester has been central to the success of the All Things Words/UCL partnership. A firm believer in our ability to demystify university jargon, she makes use of our copy and content services almost every week.
Our work with UCL Innovation & Enterprise has also led to us working with another 13 teams across UCL.
“We wanted someone that could diffuse the academic jargon and make it accessible to all. And Jo’s just phenomenal at doing that. Compared to other copywriters, Jo’s up there (gestures with hand). There are other good ones out there, but she’s the creme de la creme.”
Innovation and enterprise (knowledge exchange activity) is one of the most important functions of a modern university. Building and maintaining links with external organisations improves graduate outcomes, keeps course content relevant to industry, supports research and increases the university’s positive impact on society.
As Communications Manager for UCL Innovation & Enterprise, Wendy Tester is acutely aware of the diverse needs of the external audiences she needs to connect with.
“We’re working with external organisations, as well as supporting staff and students that want to get involved in knowledge exchange activities.
“We need to be able to write in language that both those audiences understand, which often involves essentially ‘translating’ the academic research into normal language.”
We wanted someone that could diffuse the academic jargon and make it accessible to all. And Jo’s just phenomenal at doing that.
Wendy Tester, Communications Manager for UCL Innovation & Enterprise
Finding the voice of enterprise
Wendy first approached us to work on website pages that could highlight the knowledge exchange and innovation activities for each of UCL’s 11 faculties.
“I think we realised quite quickly that there wasn’t a standard template that would work across all our faculties. We needed to show the different strengths of each – the breadth and depth of their research, and consultancy and partnerships, and how our knowledge and ideas spin out into different ventures and start ups.”
Creating a coherent and consistent tone and approach was key to all this. Wendy says,
“We wanted to use good storytelling, that really talked to the external audience. Previous attempts were still quite jargony – they didn’t really say why, as an external organisation, you should work with the Faculty of Life Sciences, or the Faculty of Engineering, and why our external audiences should care about it. So it was really about trying to do that in a much more focused way when we started working with Jo.”
All Things Words as a strategic partner
That first project has since developed into a four-year relationship, with All Things Words working with Wendy and her team most weeks.
“With Jo, it’s very collaborative, rather than us just saying, ‘we want you to do this or that.’ As well as more than 100 case studies, news stories and profiles, we’ve worked with Jo to create new content types. That involves us figuring out what the objective and purpose of a type of content should be, what we want to include, word counts, that sort of thing.
It’s helped us write in a much more targeted way to our different audiences, and create a more interesting mix of stories, including first person pieces with academics and our entrepreneurs.
“I shared some of the work internally with our central comms team, and one of them said, ‘why didn’t I know about All Things Words sooner?’ – just because of how well the copy was written.”
I shared some of the work with our central comms team, and one of them said, ‘why didn’t I know about All Things Words sooner?
Wendy Tester, Communications Manager for UCL Innovation and Enterprise
Championing UCL on all fronts
Wendy’s particularly pleased about how our work enhances UCL communications with external partners.
“There’s been lots of praise, both internally and externally.
“We’re a partner of the SHIFT innovation network. We got some really positive feedback about the case studies that Jo wrote from the SHIFT network partners.
“One particular piece of work, creating a case study and video content with one of the biggest conservation charities in Europe – they were so happy they shared our content on their own channels as part of their own campaign.
“They really praised our approach, saying the written content in the case study was fantastic, and they were really grateful that we’d worked collaboratively.”
Super-referrer
Wendy’s become one of All Things Words’ biggest champions at UCL, and her referrals have led to ongoing work with UCL marketing teams in several other faculties and departments, including The Bartlett Faculty of The Built Environment and UCL Engineering.
We’re really grateful for all the help she’s given us establishing our team as one of UCL’s trusted suppliers.
“We always have two pairs of eyes on any copy that’s written – I look at it first, then I share it with the person that manages the website. And she always knows when Jo’s written something or when somebody else has written it. Jo just gets it right almost every time.
“And you can breathe a sigh of relief because that’s it, it’s done. It’s taken the burden off us.
“She’s a lovely person, too.”
She just gets it right almost every time. And you can breathe a sigh of relief because that’s it, it’s done. It’s taken the burden off us.
Wendy Tester, Communications Manager for UCL Innovation and Enterprise
