AIM let us have the following details:

The UK has over 120 business schools and these schools invest around £60 million a year on management research. Topics studied range from strategy to operations, from marketing to human resource management, from innovation and creativity, to services and productivity. Through their research, business school faculty generate a wealth of materials and ideas and yet it seems that managers often find it difficult and challenging to access these.

The Advanced Institute of Management Research, the UK's management research initiative, is seeking to address the challenge of making research available to managers through a new initiative AIM Practice

With the support of two of the UK's Research Councils (the Economic and Social Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) and many of the UK's leading business schools and faculty, AIM Practice - Applied Innovations in Management - is selecting and converting world-class management research into materials that can be picked up and used by managers and consultants.

Already we have taken half a dozen different pieces of research and converted them into tools and techniques designed for immediate use in organisations.

Retail Management Practices
A real example will illustrate the point. One of the studies funded through AIM Research involved an examination of management practices in the retail sector. The research team surveyed over 1,000 retailers, gathering information on retail firm capabilities in operations, marketing, human resource management, etc. Having gathered their data the research team began to identify the patterns of capabilities that existed in high performing retail firms. We have taken this analysis, coupled it with the original data set to create a retail diagnostic that helps firms (or the consultants that work with them), benchmark a retail organisation's capabilities and compare them with the profile of high performing retailers.

Innovation
In the innovation field we have released an innovation fitness test that firms can use to assess how fit they are for innovation.

Strategy
We have developed a strategy diagnostic that allows firms to assess the effectiveness of their strategy process.

All of these tools - and others - are available on the AIM Practice website (www.aimpractice.com). We'll continually develop these tools and others, making them all available through the website.

So we invite you to have a look at the materials AIM Practice is making available. Try them in your firms and with your clients and let AIM know what additional materials would be useful for you. AIM Practice has unique access to the research conducted across the UK business school community and are determined to try and make this widely available and in a clear and practical form.'

For more information contact AIM