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This impact case study is based on research concerning the estimation of regional economic impacts through input-output models and spatial econometrics. The research resulted in the distribution of a free modelling software package to decision-makers throughout the South West region and has had policy impacts in terms of the influence of advice, data, and reports provided to a range of organisations including the South West Regional Development Agency, Plymouth City Council, and several other local councils and private sector decision-makers.
This case study captures the aftermath of the abolition of Regional Development Agencies and Government Offices in England after 2010. The research underpinning this case study analysed the shift from `regionalism' to `localism' in the North East of England and found that the abolition of the regional tier of governance in England did not invalidate the continuing need for multi-level policy coordination, networking and `voice' at the regional level. These findings, characterised as `Common-Sense Regionalism', directly led to the creation (by Central Government) of a Cross-Government Group of national and sub-national civil servants, representatives from local government and from the voluntary sector.
Research by Professor Iain McLean and his team has demonstrated that for more than 30 years, the process of distributing public expenditure to the regions of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales was hampered by inadequate data and inappropriate policy targets. Since 2008, this work has had two principal impacts: (1) it has informed a change in the Treasury's methods of collecting and calculating regional expenditure data, information which is used to guide policy across all government departments; and (2) it has contributed to the acceptance of needs-based regional funding as an appropriate policy target, and has laid the basis for a fundamental reform of the funding arrangements for Scotland and Wales.
A significant body of research at Newcastle University, led by Professor Charles, has played a key role both in articulating the importance of universities to regional development and in demonstrating how this may be enacted. In 2002, Charles and colleagues developed a benchmarking tool for regional engagement that enabled universities to assess the effectiveness of their engagement. This tool has been extensively used during the current impact period, most recently in 2010-11 as part of an international review of universities across 20 countries undertaken by the Pascal Observatory. The significance of the impact lies in the tool enabling Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to respond directly to the new policy imperative of engagement beyond academia. The reach of the impact is evidenced by the use of the benchmarking tool in the UK and internationally.
Research undertaken within the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) since 2009, has been applied within Enfield Borough Council to change its economic renewal strategies from having a training and infrastructure focus, to one which focuses on re-building local supply chains, leading to job creation, and the re-investment of pension funds to fund the delivery of badly needed social housing. This change in policy has been achieved by encouraging major employers, such as utility companies, to think of corporate social responsibility in a more local frame; and the council to re-engineer financial flows from the local authority pension fund.
Coombes' research to advance spatial-analysis methodology has re-defined Travel-to-Work Areas (TTWAs) — the only official UK boundaries defined by academics — and produced three distinct strands of impact.
This case study relates to the impact of research by the University of Cumbria's Centre for Regional Economic Development (CRED) on the regional impacts of inward investors on supply chains and the effectiveness of policies designed to grow regional clusters. On the basis of publications, Professor Frank Peck (Director of CRED) was appointed Expert Evaluator for a sequence of EU FP7 "Regions of Knowledge" project proposals (2007-2011), and subsequently invited to join an EU Expert Group examining the role of clusters in Smart Specialisation Strategies in EU Regions. This work has demonstrated that existing cluster initiatives can justifiably be used as a means of implementing smart specialization. As a result, regions are being encouraged to retain cluster strategies as integral parts of EU regional and innovation policies for the 2014 - 2020 programming period.
The governance geography adopted for the new Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP) in 2010 drew significantly on our research which showed that the functioning economic geography of the West Midlands included a distinctive economic growth belt that lies between 20km and 40km of the Birmingham conurbation. The approach taken by policy-makers and business leaders in the area to include this belt within the partnership area, extending it well beyond the core conurbation of Birmingham and Solihull, drew on research by Bryson, Daniels and Taylor. The LEP has continued to use the formulation of the enterprise belt in its subsequent proposals and developments, which cover an area with a population of nearly two million people, supporting 918,000 jobs and a GVA of about £35.5 billion. The influence of the Birmingham research on its approach is clear from the explicit references by the GBSLEP and other agencies to the term E3I, combining `economic', `entrepreneurial', `environmental' and `innovation' drivers of local economic growth, which was coined to describe the belt in the Birmingham research outputs.
Goddard's research in the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS) has:
2012 saw 31.1 million overseas visitors come to the UK and 57.7 million domestic holidays taken by GB residents1. However, precise understanding of tourism's economic and environmental impact, particularly at local and regional levels, has historically been weak. Cardiff Business School's (CBS) Welsh Economy Research Unit (WERU) has significantly contributed to developing methodologies to quantify tourism's socio-economic impact at different scales. Their development of the first Tourism Satellite Account for the UK has informed the way national and international agencies conceptualise and measure tourism impacts. Researchers then developed a Tourism Impact Model to assess the impact of new facilities and infrastructure, and of large sporting and cultural events. This has helped event organisers and sponsors, including the Welsh Government, understand how to optimise value for money whilst minimising undesirable environmental impacts.