On the 7th December 2017, a launch event was held for the UK Evaluation Society – Midlands Regional Network. The event, held at the University of Birmingham, provided an opportunity for the steering group to put faces to
names and explore what type of network members would like.
Around twenty members of the network were able to attend, which included presentations from Rebecca Riley, City-REDI, Delma Dwight,Black Country Consortium, and Helen Wilkinson, Risk Solutions. The launch was opened and hosted by George Bramley, University of Birmingham and an associate of City-REDI.
Here is a summary of the presentations from George Bramley:
City-REDI and the What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth
Speaker: Rebecca Riley, City Regional Economic Development Institute,
University of Birmingham
Rebecca Riley provided our third launch event presentation on City REDI and the What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth. Rebecca is based in the City Regional Economic Development Institute, established by the University of Birmingham. City REDI aims ‘to be a world-leading research institute focussed on international comparative studies of major city regions, to better understand and influence regional and national economic growth policies.’ Rebecca gave an overview of analytical work the Institute had undertaken so far to support the development of the regional economic strategy, including the skills module for WMCA dynamic economic model for the West Midlands region and to support the devolution of responsibilities from Westminster to the new regional combined authority. City REDI is keen to support the development of the analytical capabilities in the region having held events such as the Analystfest that provided a forum for regional analytical networks to share experiences and issues.
West Midlands Combined Authority
Speaker: Delma Dwight, Director of Economic Intelligence at the Black Country Consortium
Chair: Ass. Prof. Will Rossiter, Nottingham Trent University
Delma was invited to speak to provide perspective on likely evaluation needs of regional combined authorities. The Black Country Consortium has responsibility for local economic development and Delma has had a leading role in developing a regional approach to evaluating activities included in the strategic economic plan for the new West Midlands Combined Authority. Delma’s session set out the challenges faced by the recently established Authority and the evaluation framework that she helped to develop to assess the Authority’s activities in terms of social, economic, fiscal and environmental impacts and the development of the dynamic economic impact model for selecting and assessing potential areas for intervention.
CECAN: Complexity in Evaluation
Speaker: Helen Wilkinson, Risk Solutions. Member of the Executive Group of CECAN
Chair: Dr. Tracey Wond, University of Derby
The Centre for the Evaluation of Complexity Across the Nexus (CECAN) is jointly funded by the ESRC, NERC, DEFRA, BEIS, Environment Agency and Food Agency to develop evaluation methodologies that consider complexity resulting from interactions between food, energy, water and environment systems. CECAN is a virtual centre supporting collaboration between academic centres and consultancies, and regularly provides training events and seminars to the wider evaluation community. Helen was invited to describe the work of the Centre and outline how network members could draw on the resources CECAN has been developing. Helen gave an interesting presentation on the use of dependency modelling in evaluating the Environmental Agency’s flood and coastal erosion programme.
This blog is an extract from the Midlands Regional Network Newsletter written by Dr. Tracey Wond, University of Derby. You can view the full newsletter here.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this analysis post are those of the authors and not necessarily those of City-REDI or the University of Birmingham
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