Latest Posts ⇢

YU appoints new Chair of Board of Directors

Yorkshire Universities (YU) has announced that Professor Sir Chris Husbands, Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University, will take over from Professor Koen Lamberts, Vice-Chancellor of the University of York, as Chair of the YU Board of Directors from 1 August 2018.

YU has agreed a new strategy that will see the regional partnership focus on widening and deepening the role of Yorkshire’s universities in place-based development, including national and local industrial policy. Sir Chris Husbands’ responsibilities as Chair will include steering YU’s relationships with national and regional government, business and public sector partners.

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The value of place-based university collaborations

Dr Peter O’Brien, Executive Director

Yorkshire Universities is something of a unique construct. Formed in 1987, this place-based university collaborative venture has endured despite the periodic upheaval in sub-national economic development governance and planning in England.

At the recent Northern Powerhouse Business Summit, part of the Great Exhibition of the North, the Northern Powerhouse Minister, Jake Berry, launched a new pan-regional governance entity – NP11 – a grouping of Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) in the north of England, which will be headed initially by the Chair of the Leeds City Region LEP.

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Industrial Policy…Is it coming home?

Monika Antal, Executive Manager

For those not fully-aware of the timeliness of the industrial policy and strategy debate, we are on the brink of the fourth industrial revolution which will result in some of the most fundamental changes to economy and society. Why is this important? Because it will alter how we live, work, and how we relate to each other. Some of us still remember life without the internet and smart phones, right? That is the scale of transformation taking place, but with much more complex and long-term implications.

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Smart(er) Cities

Dr Peter O’Brien, Executive Director

Last week’s publication of a new report by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Smart Cities illustrates perfectly the importance of defining smart technology in urban metropolitan settings as a multi and inter-disciplinary venture requiring co-investment and co-ordination between science, technology, governance and civic engagement. Here, universities are uniquely-equipped to make major contributions within and across these areas.

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