In this blog, Gerardo J. Arriaga‑Garcia, Sophie Cloutterbuck and Nina Ruddle discuss how innovation in place depends on trust, stewardship, system skills and the often invisible intermediary work that connects communities, institutions and decision-making.
In a recent episode of Placecast, Dr Gerardo J. Arriaga-Garcia, City-REDI Research Fellow and LPIP Innovation Co-lead, spoke with Nina Ruddle, Head of Public Policy Engagement at Wrexham University, and Sophie Cloutterbuck, Director of London Engagement and the London Met Lab at London Metropolitan University. Although North Wales and London differ in scale and governance, the conversation revealed common ground around the conditions that allow local innovation to endure.
Funding, technology, physical infrastructure and technical expertise all have an important role in regional development. Their effects, however, depend heavily on the relationships that connect organisations, communities and decision-makers. Where those relationships are weak, innovation can become fragmented, short-lived or disconnected from the people it is intended to serve. Where they are nurtured over time, they can create the shared confidence and capacity needed to act across institutional boundaries.
Building trustworthy institutions
Public trust remains fragile across the UK. The OECD’s latest findings show that 33% of people reported high or moderately high trust in national government in 2025, compared with an OECD average of 40%. More broadly, only 31% of people across OECD countries felt that the political system allows people like them to have a say in what government does. The OECD identifies responsiveness, reliability, fairness, integrity and openness as key influences on public trust.
These findings should invite policymakers and civic institutions to think carefully about their own conduct and relationships with the communities they serve. Trust grows when institutions behave consistently, recognise different forms of knowledge and expertise, explain their decisions clearly and demonstrate how public opinion, participation and engagement have influenced their actions and decisions. Repeated consultations with little visible follow-through, sadly a common approach to community participation by various government officials, can gradually deepen cynicism; clear feedback loops and credible delivery can strengthen confidence over time.
Bianchi et al. (2025) show how trust in identifiable people who communicate across institutional boundaries can improve perceptions of institutional goodwill and competence. A trusted intermediary, community partner or public servant can make a complex organisation feel more accessible. A recent paper by Ruddle and Arriaga-Garcia (2026) develops this argument further through the experience of Wrexham University’s civic work across North Wales, showing how stewardship depends on sustained relationships, safe spaces for collaboration, the alignment of evidence with lived experience, and credible routes through which participation can shape decisions. Findings from a forthcoming study by Sophie Cloutterbuck highlight how connecting local government with community intelligence often relies on specialised ‘boundary-spanners’ who build trust and broker relationships across organisational boundaries. By navigating government, academia, and grassroots communities, these translators foster relational co-production. Moving beyond brief consultations builds lasting trust via permanent relational infrastructure, clear feedback, and fair compensation for lived experience
Rethinking the skills required for innovation
Innovation debates have often given greatest attention to technical skills, investment readiness and measurable outputs, key factors for developing places. However, as we lively discussed in the podcast, there is a need for a broadened approach focused on a further set of capabilities that Nina described as system skills. These include patience, listening, adaptability, facilitation, translation, connecting and the ability to work across institutional and community boundaries.
These capabilities are often grouped under “soft skills”, a label that can understate their complexity and practical value. Translating between the expectations, language and timescales of communities, universities, businesses and government requires judgement, diplomacy and a strong understanding of place. Effective collaboration may also involve sharing recognition, resources and decision-making power.
Wilson et al. (2024) argue that complex public challenges require systems built around relationships and collective learning, since standardised processes and targets have limited reach when problems involve uncertainty, interdependence and competing perspectives. This argument is reinforced by recent Bennett Institute for Public Policy work on social and cultural infrastructure, which draws attention to the spaces, services, organisations and networks that bring people together, enable participation and help communities develop relationships, trust, reciprocity and a sense of belonging. Similarly, a British Academy’s research strand of work also emphasises that the value of this infrastructure depends on how it is developed, governed and maintained, including whether community voices are represented, whether partnerships are sufficiently resourced and whether local people can influence decisions about the assets and spaces they use. Seen in this light, relational skills and intermediary roles form part of the infrastructure through which place-based innovation is sustained, because they shape whether organisations can collaborate, communities can exercise agency and local knowledge can travel into policy and decision-making.
Stewardship and the connective work of place
The conversation during the Podcast episode emphasised the significance of the painstaking job of convening, translating, brokering and sustaining relationships. Both Nina and Sophie, in their work as stewards, create the conditions in which organisations can understand one another, work through disagreement and act around a shared purpose. This form of leadership can be understood as stewardship, which entails holding space for collective action while resisting the temptation for one institution to dominate the wider system. Recent literature on leadership provides a strong foundation for this interpretation. Sotarauta and Beer (2017) describe place leadership as a relational and cross-institutional process that facilitates development across professional cultures and organisational boundaries, engages diverse communities, and draws upon consensus, trust and collaboration. Bentley, Pugalis and Shutt (2017) similarly locate leadership within constellations of reciprocal relationships and mutual trust, arguing that its practical value lies in the collective capacity of actors to formulate strategies, mobilise resources and translate shared ambitions into action. Seen in this way, stewardship can be understood as a form of place leadership that develops the relationships, shared understanding and capacity to act through which collaborative innovation becomes possible.
However, much of this activity remains difficult to see through conventional performance measures. Its value may lie in an introduction that leads to a new partnership, a meeting where mistrust is discussed honestly, or a community perspective carried into a strategic setting without losing its meaning. These apparent modest moments are largely what shape the capacity of a place to work collaboratively. In North Wales, initiatives such as the North Wales Insight Partnership bring together data, evidence, public-service partners and community insight. Across London, the London Higher Civic Network helps connect civic activity throughout a crowded and diverse higher-education landscape. These examples illustrate how networks can become a form of relational infrastructure, providing routes through which knowledge, people and opportunities move.
Through the Local Policy Innovation Partnership programme, and particularly the LPIP Hub, we have sought to make this connective work more visible and purposeful at a UK-wide level. The Hub convenes researchers, policymakers, practitioners and community partners across the research and policy ecosystem, helping place-based partnerships access relevant evidence, identify shared challenges and exchange learning about what works in different contexts. Through it, we have also sought to provide an intermediary route between local insight and national policy, supporting the translation of evidence, the development of stronger and more diverse partnerships, and the sharing of lessons on co-creation, evaluation and knowledge mobilisation. In this sense, the Hub’s contribution lies partly in the tangible evidence and outputs it produces, and partly in maintaining the relationships and channels through which local knowledge can travel, partnerships can mature and learning generated in one place can be interpreted carefully in another.
The OECD’s recent work on place-based policy also emphasises the importance of local leadership, inclusive engagement, strategic capacity and coordination across different levels of government. These capabilities take time to mature, and their effects may become visible only after several years. Short funding cycles can therefore interrupt partnerships just as shared understanding and trust are beginning to develop.
Different places, shared foundations
There are staggering differences between London and North Wales in almost every measure. For instance, London has a population of around 9.1 million and encompasses 32 boroughs alongside the City of London. North Wales has approximately 687,000 residents spread across over 6,100 square kilometres, with many rural, coastal and bilingual communities.
London’s institutional density generates opportunity alongside considerable complexity. Numerous universities, public bodies, boroughs, businesses and community organisations operate across overlapping geographies. Sophie described the challenge as one of “noise”, where the number of actors can make navigation and coordination difficult.
North Wales presents a different configuration, shaped by geographical distance, dispersed populations, devolved institutions and the Welsh-language context. The Well-being of Future Generations Act provides a distinctive foundation through its emphasis on long-term thinking, prevention, integration, collaboration and involvement. Translating those principles into daily practice still requires sustained effort across organisations and communities.
Despite these differences, the methods described by Nina and Sophie were remarkably similar, as they both relied on patience, trusted relationships, institutional humility, local knowledge and people able to move between different parts of a system. A key distinction to be made, though, is that the form of stewardship changes according to place, while it is possible to argue that the underlying purpose remains widely transferable.
Making participation consequential
Inclusive innovation depends on whether people can see a meaningful connection between their involvement and what happens afterwards. The issue is that communities can become fatigued when they are repeatedly asked to contribute stories, experiences, opinions and data without receiving information about the findings or decisions that follow.
Nina offered examples from Wrexham where creative methods, including postcard-based engagement, were linked directly to the development of long-term priorities. Sophie reflected on communities in London that have been extensively researched, sometimes experiencing engagement as a process of extraction. Their experiences suggest that participation gains credibility when institutions explain how contributions were interpreted, where influence was possible and what changed as a result.
Consequential participation requires opportunities for communities to shape the questions, governance and outputs of a project. Returning findings, inviting challenge and remaining present after an engagement exercise can help develop a more reciprocal relationship. Over time, this approach can strengthen agency by giving people a clearer role in shaping the future of their place.
Investing in the human infrastructure of innovation
Three practical priorities emerge from the conversation. Stewardship, convening and boundary-spanning roles require stable funding and professional recognition. Partnerships need timeframes that reflect the slow development of trust, accompanied by evaluation approaches that consider network strength, community influence and relational quality alongside delivery metrics. Participation processes also need transparent feedback loops so that communities can follow the journey from contribution to decision and action.
Place-based innovation grows through relationships that allow institutions and communities to learn, adapt and act together. Projects will end, strategies will change, and individual leaders will move on. The capabilities, networks and shared confidence developed through the work can provide a more durable legacy. Investing in that human and relational infrastructure offers policymakers, universities and funders a stronger foundation for inclusive and lasting change.
This blog was written by Gerardo J. Arriaga-Garcia, Research Fellow, City-REDI, University of Birmingham, Sophie Cloutterbuck, Director of London Engagement and the London Met Lab at London Metropolitan University and Nina Ruddle, Head of Public Policy Engagement, Wrexham University.
Find out more about the Local Policy Innovation Partnership Hub.
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.