City-REDI / WM REDI Round Up – June 2021

Events – presenting work/speaking engagements

• On the 27^th of May, Professor Anne Green presented work with Rebecca Riley and other City-REDI colleagues on ‘Megatrends’ to the Midlands Engine Intelligence Community.
• On the 3rd of June, Professor Raquel Ortega-Argiles presented a paper co-authorised with Pei-Yu Yuan at the Regional Studies Association (RSA) Regions in Recovery Global E-Festival in a session called Disentangling Covid-19 New Methodological Approaches.
• On the 7th of June, Matt Lyons presented at the Regional Studies Association (RSA) Regions in Recovery Global E-Festival in a session called ‘city-regional futures in the post-pandemic era’.
• On the 9th of June, Professor Simon Collinson presented at a Westminster Social Policy Forum keynote seminar on the ‘Next steps for the economic growth and development in the Midlands’.
• On the 9th of June, Professor Anne Green and Rebecca Riley presented on ‘Regional Deprivation – An Equalities and Exclusion Lens’ at the West Midlands Funders Network conference on ‘Strengthening and Embedding Diversity, Equality, Equity and Inclusion in Funding’.
• On the 10th of June, the Managing Partners Forum 2021 Awards Ceremony took part where Professor Raquel Ortega-Argiles acted as a judge.
• On the 14th of June, Professor Raquel Ortega-Argiles and Dr Emmanouil Tranos chair a Special Session  Digital tools for the recovery and the resilience of cities and regions during and after a crisis at the Regions in Recovery Global E-Festival. This session was part of the Facebook project. Dr Tasos Kitsos presented at the session.
• On the 17th of June, Professor Simon Collinson chaired a live morning plenary session of the UUK’s national Employability and Skills Conference, where successful partnerships between the CBI and universities to tackle demand-supply gaps in labour markets were presented.
• On the 18th of June, Professor John Goddard was a panellist in an event organised by the European Commission on The  Regional Innovation Impact of Universities in Europe linked to the launch of a new publication on this topic.
• On the 23rd of June, Professor Simon Collinson chaired a live panel on the ‘Global Journey’ at the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce annual Global Trade Conference. The panel session was sponsored by the University of Birmingham as a patron of the Chamber and featured presentations from 6 regional businesses include the CEO of Gymshark.
• On the 23rd of June, George Bramley and colleagues presented the findings of the evaluation of Pivot & Prosper to the GBSLEP Recovery Taskforce.
• On the 24th of June, Professor Anne Green was a speaker alongside Lee Barron (TUC Midlands) and Dr Jack Cao (Keele University) at a Work Inclusivity Research Centre City-REDI webinar on ‘Good Jobs in the Midlands after Covid’ chaired by Professor Tony Dobbins.
• On the 24th of June, Professor Raquel Ortega-Argiles was an invited speaker at the ESCoE (Economic Statistics Center of Excellence) workshop: Ever-increasing demand for regional statistics: COVID-19 era and beyond.  

Reports / publications released

• A report on Mapping the architecture of economic development policy and strategy across the Midlands Engine pan‐region by City-REDI staff members Anne Green, Abigail Taylor, Charlotte Hoole, Rebecca Riley and Alice Pugh, along with Will Rossiter and Konstantinos Karagounis from Nottingham Trent University has been published by the Midlands Engine Observatory.
• City-REDI featured in a British Academy report on ‘Place-Based Approaches to Research Funding’ as a solution to the challenge of building analytical capacity within regional institutions. The report argues that ‘the SHAPE (Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts for People and the Economy) disciplines, have a crucial role to play in ensuring that scientific and technological innovations are adopted across a broad group of businesses.’
• Research England are planning to publish the terms of reference and membership of the steering group for the evaluation of the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF). George Bramley attended the first meeting this month.
• Professor Raquel Ortega-Argiles, Dr Magda Cepeda-Zorrilla and Dr Sevinc Deniz published the work “Rebalancing UK Regional and Industrial Policy Post-Brexit: Lessons Learned and Priorities for the Future” in Regional Studies, this academic publication is part of the UK in a Changing Europe project The Post-Brexit Policy-Support Needs of ‘Left-Behind’ Place This work is co-authorized with Professor Philip McCann (University of Sheffield). 

Look ahead to the coming months…

• Abigail Taylor and Anne Green are presenting research findings on ‘From physical to virtual: challenges and opportunities for a neighbourhood-based employment support programme’ at a Symposium on ‘Employment support policies to support the economic recovery’ as part of a symposium organised by the Employment Policy in Context Group at the Social Policy Association annual conference on 7th July.
• Professor John Goddard contributed to an institutional planning workshop with Oxford Brookes University on the theme Enterprise Everywhere: Partnerships and Place which is being held on the 9th July.