This year marks a major milestone for City-REDI as we celebrate a decade of research, impact, and collaboration. Over the past 10 years, we’ve grown from a bold idea into a leading centre for regional economic development, shaping policy and practice across the UK and beyond.
To mark this anniversary, we’re launching a special blog series that looks back on our journey—highlighting key projects, partnerships, and the people who’ve helped make it all happen.
The next part of our series is from Research Fellow, Gerardo Javier Arriaga Garcia.
I joined City-REDI on 21 October 2024 to do the work I care about most: turning rigorous evidence into decisions that genuinely improve people’s lives. What drew me here was the combination I’d been searching for across previous roles and collaborations: a place that takes ideas seriously, partners widely, and measures success by what happens in the city-region, not just what gets written about it. Over the past year I’ve co-designed the Inclusive Innovation Compass sessions, supported mission-led programmes, and worked with colleagues and partners from councils, combined authorities and private sector. It has been joyful, stretching, and deeply energising.
What difference does City-REDI make to policy, research and the region?
In a sentence: we make better choices possible. You can see it in the way leaders across the West Midlands and beyond use our independent insight to guide investment; in how the Birmingham Economic Review shapes debate; and in the practical tools colleagues deploy with partners to test what works, adapt quickly, and avoid the trap of shiny but shallow interventions. Our impact is often quiet but catalytic: a brief that reframes a problem; an options appraisal that puts people and place into the numbers; a workshop where community voice and economic analysis meet and, suddenly, a thorny idea becomes something you can deliver any given day of the week.
What’s the culture that makes this possible?
Curious, generous, and purposeful. We challenge each other’s ideas with real kindness. We share credit instinctively. We obsess (in a healthy way!) about clarity, about the problem underneath the problem and then we roll up our sleeves. There’s an ease to collaboration that you don’t find everywhere: economists working with evaluation specialists; policy researchers teaming up with data scientists; early-career colleagues trusted to lead. It’s a culture that encourages you to try, to learn in public, and to keep the user, residents, practitioners, decision-makers at the centre. I’ve learned as much from corridor conversations as from formal meetings: a well-timed question, a dataset I didn’t know existed, a reminder to ask “who isn’t in the room yet?”
So what makes City-REDI unique?
Three things, and they reinforce each other. First, we’re rooted. Being embedded in the West Midlands gives our work texture: we know the context, the constraints and the coalitions that move the dial. Second, we’re trusted. Independence matters; partners come to us for evidence they can rely on when the stakes are high. Third, we’re practical. We don’t just diagnose; we convene, prototype, evaluate and iterate. That balance, place-anchored, evidence-led, action-oriented, is rare. It means that as a team we can help a local team sharpen a business case in the morning and contribute to national policy debate in the afternoon, without losing the thread between them.
Hopes for the next decade?
I want City-REDI to help make inclusive innovation the default (not an add-on, but a standard for how missions are judged and funded). That means designing with communities from the start, understanding who benefits (and who doesn’t), and supporting adoption at scale where solutions already exist. I want us to deepen evaluation you can steer by: building feedback loops into programmes so leaders can learn and pivot in weeks, not years. I want us to strengthen the region’s civic data and insight infrastructure, joining up quantitative and qualitative intelligence so decisions about equality, health, skills, productivity and net zero are faster, fairer and more transparent. And I want us to keep investing in people: opening doors for early-career researchers, backing practitioners who want to experiment, and creating spaces where public, private and civic partners solve problems together.
All of that links directly to the place-based needs of the West Midlands. This is a region of extraordinary assets and stubborn inequalities; progress will depend on adoption as much as invention, on collaboration as much as capital. We can help anchor institutions get better and learn faster; help SMEs plug into innovation networks that actually deliver value; help local systems align around missions with clear outcomes and shared accountability. If we do that well, we’ll see the things that matter, good jobs, stronger communities, healthier lives, move in the right direction, for the right reasons.
As we celebrate City-REDI’s tenth birthday, I want to say thank you. To colleagues who welcomed me so warmly; to partners who bring candour and commitment; and to the wider University of Birmingham community for the intellectual freedom and civic purpose that make this work possible. It is a privilege to be part of a team that combines ambition with humility, and rigour with care. Here’s to the next ten years staying curious, staying generous, and staying focused on impact that people can feel. I’m proud to be part of this amazing team, and deeply grateful for the privilege of doing this work at the University of Birmingham.
This blog was written by Dr. Gerardo Arriaga-Garcia , Research Fellow, City-REDI, University of Birmingham.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this analysis post are those of the author and not necessarily those of City-REDI or the University of Birmingham.