The City-REDI / WMREDI YouTube channel is an excellent way of catching up on all our latest research, events and other work. This blog highlights some of our best performing videos since we started the channel.
City-REDI has been involved with the Green Book since late 2019 when Rebecca Riley began chairing the Green Book User Group. Since then we’ve posted several blogs on Green Book-related topics, as well as participated in and run events.
What is the Green Book? It’s a guidance document produced by HM Treasury. An aid to scoping, appraising and planning successful delivery of better policies, programmes and projects, that will lead to better outcomes for people, businesses and places.
This video features a presentation from Joseph Lowe, Editor of the Green Book and Head of Economics Branch HMT on the review’s findings and how it has shaped and changed the new Green Book.
2. What are the economic impacts of COVID-19 on the West Midlands?
This video is part of a body of work City-REDI produced looking at the social and economic impacts of COVID-19. Each week produced an economic impact monitor to provide policymakers with an update-to-date commentary and analysis of the potential impact on the region and the UK.
The video describes COVID-19 as a medical emergency and an economic contagion, which spreads through our economy, causing a downward cycle of economic and social impacts.
3. Megatrends in the West Midlands: Future Business District
This video is from one of our early podcasts on megatrends in the West Midlands. Megatrends are major movements, patterns or trends that are having a transformative impact on business, economy, society, cultures and personal lives. In the summer of 2022, we produced a report, a series of provocations and accompanying podcasts on the themes that emerged from the research.
This particular podcast looked at the Future Business District in the West Midlands. How would the rise in homeworking impact business districts? What impact do transport systems have on them? How do we encourage people back into town centres?
Johannes Read discussed this with Mike Best, Senior Director at Turley and Kevin Johnson, Managing Director from Urban Communications.
4. Alison McGovern, MP – Leeds Brexit Workshop
Over two weeks in May 2018 we visited 4 major UK cities to present research findings from our project “The Economic Impacts of Brexit on the UK, its Regions, its Cities and its Sectors”.
The project aimed to examine in detail the likely impacts of Brexit on the UK’s sectors, regions and cities by using the most detailed regional-national-international trade and competition datasets.
The research found that the UK’s cities and regions which voted for Brexit were also the most economically dependent on EU markets for their prosperity and viability, due to their sectoral and trade composition.
We brought political and business leaders together with academics and civil society organisations to discuss the likely impacts of Brexit and actions that needed to be taken. In this video, Alison McGovern, Labour MP for Wirral South, discusses the potential impacts of Brexit.
5. Mark Bretton, Chair, The LEP Network. Webinar: The future of local economic policy
In 2019/2020, Dr Abigail Taylor was seconded to the now-defunct Industrial Strategy Council.
The project produced six reports on levelling up, skills and local growth strategies.
The Industrial Strategy Council and City-REDI co-hosted a webinar to discuss key findings from the research “What does it take to level up places?”.
In this video, Mark Bretton, Chair of the LEP Network, discusses why local cannot mean “one size fits all” when developing local economies.
6. Intergenerational Income Mobility in the UK
Each year, City-REDI holds a seminar series where we invite academics from around the country and the world to share their research interests with us.
This video features Dr Bertha Rohenkohl from the University of Sheffield, who discusses her research examining the degree of intergenerational income mobility in the UK with a focus on younger cohorts born between 1973-1992.
7. Less is more? Will the Levelling Up White Paper rebalance the regional distribution of R&D Spending?
We’re onto our fourth edition of REDI-Updates, an annual report where we take a deep dive into issues impacting the UK. This year investigates the cost-of-living crisis.
In the previous edition, we looked at the morbid symptoms of low growth and low productivity in the UK, the challenges of levelling up, international examples of success stories, and the role of employment support and skills in levelling up.
This video examines the Government’s plans to redistribute Research and Development around the UK, as set out in the Levelling Up White Paper.
8. State of the Region, Launch Event
On 4th August 2021, The West Midlands Regional Economic Development Institute (WMREDI) held a webinar to host the launch of the State of the Region 2021 Report.
The report provided a snapshot of the regional conditions in the West Midlands at the time and highlighted some of the critical challenges ahead.
9. Virtual Internships
Each year, City-REDI employs students from the University of Birmingham in our summer internship programme. The students take part in our research programme and gain valuable experience in the workplace for when they move into the labour market after finishing studying.
During COVID-19, the internships became virtual. Hannes Read developed a toolkit for schools and colleges at the University of Birmingham to highlight ‘what works’ when conducting virtual internships with internal and external partners.
This video is about the benefits of virtual internships and the importance of students getting the best experiences whilst studying. It features Johannas Read and his intern Connor Mcfadden discussing the process.
10. STEM Assets: The Warwick Manufacturing Group
This video is part of a project that maps the region’s university infrastructure, focusing specifically on STEM assets and compares the commercial and non-commercial impacts of the assets, identifying any social/environmental/economic trade-offs.
This video looks at the Warwick Manufacturing Group.
Ellie Macdonald, Digital Marketing Assistant, City-REDI / WMREDI, University of Birmingham.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this analysis post are those of the authors and not necessarily those of City-REDI / WMREDI or the University of Birmingham.