Project overview

The role of innovation-led growth

Capabilities demonstrated: Stakeholder engagement, policy and business analysis, proposition development, visioning

Client: South Yorkshire MCA

Date: August 2020 - December 2020

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The job to be done

Gain the support of the council chief executive’s for the principle that innovation can be an enabler of inclusive regional productivity and growth. Agreeing this principle paved the way for their support to develop innovation clusters across the region, including the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District - now part of the wider South Yorkshire Investment Zone.

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The key challenges

Innovation as a driver of placed-based economic growth is a contested concept. There is a perception that innovation and innovation districts tend to favour a small majority and don’t bring benefits to the wider working population. In this context, the question to be addressed was to what extent should innovation be used to drive economic growth and wider regeneration objectives when other investments in economic development and regeneration may bring more immediate benefits to a wider range of people in South Yorkshire.

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The approach taken

Working with SYMCA as the convenor, we facilitated a series of 4 conversations with chief executives and directors of service to better understand their strategic objectives, and how these could be enabled by investments in innovation – including skills, training, business support and placemaking.

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Papers were also prepared to inform the group on key topics including the current economic challenges in South Yorkshire, the potential of advanced manufacturing in South Yorkshire, and emerging Government innovation policy including the UK Innovation Strategy. Regional experts were also invited to speak to the group , giving their perspectives on the opportunities and challenges.

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Outcome and impact

We agreed that the role of innovation is to deliver ‘more and better jobs' and that this required a more inclusive approach to shaping innovation policy and investment. This would be enabled by ensuring investments in innovation benefitted a wider proportion of the working age population in South Yorkshire in terms of providing opportunities for skills, training, employment and local business growth. This shaped our approach to the development of innovation district strategy over subsequent years and led to a more in-depth piece of work on the role of inclusive innovation in regional development. We wrote the specification for the research and this was commissioning by the Connected Places Catapult.

 

These outputs have been critical to the success of AMID and consequently to South Yorkshire being announced as the first UK Investment Zone by The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in Sheffield on 13th July, 2023.

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