On 19th May, Simon Collinson presented at a Westminster Business Forum on: ‘Next steps for investment zones – developing knowledge clusters’. One of the key messages was that selecting and delivering on the potential of investment zones to help boost local growth required a better understanding of how local skills supply-demand gaps would limit the growth of some kinds of clusters in specific regions.
Donald Houston was a discussant on the UK In a Changing Europe’s “Levelling Up – where have we got to?” panel on 6th June. The panel discussed the striking and persistent regional differences in productivity, earning and living standards across the UK, as well as exploring possible policy interventions to address these, based on a paper by Anna Stansbury, MIT Sloan School of Management; Dan Turner, Harvard Kennedy School; and Ed Balls, Kings College London.
Simon Collinson participated in a roundtable hosted at WMG, Warwick University, on 6th June, to provide evidence and recommendations to Lord Harrington of Watford, who has been commissioned by the Chancellor to lead a Treasury / DBT review of inward UK FDI (foreign direct investment ) into the UK. The participants discussed how the UK can better attract foreign direct investment into key growth sectors (digital technology, creative industries, life sciences, advanced manufacturing and green industries).
Simon Collinson gave the opening Keynote Presentation at a Westminster Social Policy Forum on: ‘The future for pan-regional partnerships’ on 8th June. There was general agreement at this Forum that stable, long-term government policies and governance structures, at both the local and national levels, are necessary to support strong pan-regional partnerships and inclusive growth across UK regions.
On 15th June, Fumi Kitagawa gave a keynote presentation, “Innovation Studies – A Lens to understand the Future” for the NITM (Networks, Information, Technology & Innovation Management) European Graduate School, for an interdisciplinary and international cohort of PhD students. The NITM Graduate School (15-17 June) was affiliated to the IEEE/ITMC conference, “Shaping the future- Data-driven Engineering, Innovation and Entrepreneurship”.
On 16th June, Annum Rafique presented at the Regional Studies Association Conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on: Understanding the role of university-based assets on innovation in the SMEs: A case of Tyseley Energy Park (TEP)
On 16th June Abigail Taylor presented at the Regional Studies Association conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia on “Applying Learning from Local Skills Ecosystems from Cardiff, Chicago and Lille to inform policy in city-regions in England”, co-authored with Anne Green and Chris Millward.
Anne Green and Charlotte Hoole presented a paper ‘Too important for a lottery: local funding flows for youth employment and skills in England’, at the Regional Studies Association Annual Conference, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 17 June 2023.
On the 16th June, Charlotte Hoole presented the following paper at the Regional Studies Association Annual Conference 2023 in Ljubljana: ‘Covid-19 recovery planning in city-regions: Soft spaces of governance in action’ (Charlotte Hoole, Abigail Taylor, Anne Green)
On 19th June, Rebecca Riley took part in the Universities Policy Engagement Network conference. Rebecca was on a panel discussing devolved and Regional policy engagement.
On 28th June Abigail Taylor presented at the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy annual conference discussing research conducted with CIPFA into the experiences of city regions internationally and in England of addressing regional inequalities.
