Local government faces substantial challenges meeting UK and devolved government policy ambitions to address regional disparities.
Local government faces substantial challenges meeting UK and devolved government policy ambitions to address regional disparities.
It does not help that local resources, research capacity and expertise vary from postcode to postcode across the UK.
The UK’s research and innovation (R&I) system is playing an increasingly active role engaging with and informing local policy development and delivery.
By collaborating across universities, local government, industry, and community groups, it’s possible to identify and trial new approaches to address the challenges faced by communities across the UK.
At UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the UK’s largest national science and research funding agency, we have announced the first phase of the £23 million Local Policy Innovation Partnerships programme (LPIPs).
This programme will support local policymakers in tackling levelling up challenges, driving sustainable and inclusive economic growth, and reducing regional disparities in the UK.
It will bring together local policymakers, industry, researchers, and community groups to forge strong partnerships to co-produce a research agenda to address the challenges that matter to local communities.
Over the next few months, 10 phase one seed-corn projects across the UK will work with local partners to develop full stage proposals to host multimillion pound LPIPs in their local areas from late 2023.
The local challenges the LPIP programme will explore during phase one include addressing skills gaps in Northern Ireland and the West Midlands, and boosting innovation in new green technologies in South Yorkshire’s supply chains.
You can find a full list here. The LPIPs themselves are supported by the LPIP Hub which plays a strategic coordination role across the LPIP network.
Local partnership working is vital in responding and building resilience to shocks and inequalities caused by world events and significant policy change.
When policy is designed with local places and their unique circumstances in mind, it is more likely to succeed and lead to better outcomes.
Currently, policy capability is struggling to keep up with the pace of change with limited resources, and both pressures for immediate responses and resistance to change create barriers.
The LPIP Hub will work with local policy innovation partnerships to help overcome these barriers and enable change through a collaborative ‘Policy Hive’ structure, sharing knowledge and expertise, and responding to the place capacity gap.
The LPIP Hub will enable LPIPs to access data, evidence and expertise from the broader research and innovation system to address local need.
It will also act as a gateway for national policymakers and government bodies to gain insights and evidence from the LPIPs into local challenges and opportunities.
Our vision is to create a network of place partnerships with the capability to deliver real-world change at local and regional level.
Our guiding principles start with the needs of the users, bringing the best of intellectual ambition alongside engagement and delivery expertise to address levelling up.
In phase two, four partnerships will receive up to £4.8 million each to deliver insights and solutions that drive inclusive sustainable local growth by tackling a range of priorities, including innovation, skills, communities in their places, felt experiences and pride in place, cultural recovery, and living and working sustainably in a greener economy
The LPIPs programme will contribute to a better-connected local research and development and policy system. It will build increased capacity and capability that can deliver effectively for local partnerships. We see this network as a foundational architecture that we can build on with partners to support high-quality evidence-informed policy that understands local needs, creates new opportunities, and makes a real difference to peoples’ lives.
- To find out more, see policy innovation partnerships for local growth