Universities and Place
Growing attention by the UK government is being paid to the ability of all regions and nations of the UK to fulfil their economic growth potential. As a country, we have some of the largest spatial disparities in economic performance of advanced economies.
As part of this, expectations on universities are growing to play a bigger and more active role in delivering ambitions to raise economic growth in their local economies, including through their many and varied knowledge exchange (KE) activities.
National research, KE, and innovation funders also face pressures to adopt a place-based approach in developing funding programmes to pursue regional economic growth objectives. Recent examples include the Strength in Places Fund (managed jointly by Research England and Innovate UK and allocated by competition) and the Regional Innovation Fund (allocated by Research England via formula).
Developing new and improved data and metrics is becoming increasingly urgent to inform policy development and funding allocation approaches aimed at enabling and supporting university KE to contribute actively to regional economic growth. This search for improved data and metrics benefits from being grounded in an up-to-date understanding of how universities can contribute to regional economic growth through their KE endeavours.
Current Porjects
