Dr Peter O’Brien Local government is facing acute financial crisis, unprecedented in recent times. As if to illustrate, over half of the respondents to a recent Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) survey said they were likely to declare effective bankruptcy in the next five years, 9% said they were likely to in the next financial …
This op ed was originally published online by Yorkshire Post on 19 February 2024: https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/yorkshire-is-a-paradox-of-world-class-assets-and-widening-inequalities-dr-peter-obrien-4520710 Dr Peter O’Brien, Executive Director of YU Yorkshire has a truly world renowned brand – a fantastic region, full of potential, vibrant culture and great assets – not least the 12 higher education institutions who make up Yorkshire Universities. But …
A trailblazing Yorkshire-based project, which includes a new data portal giving communities vital information, and major climate change initiative, has secured £5m funding. The project, the only one to be funded in England, and one of just four in the UK to be awarded UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) investment, will be delivered between now …
Professor Jamie Morgan, Leeds Beckett University The last general election took place in December 2019, and government must call another one within five years or Parliament is automatically dissolved, and the latest that can happen is 17 December 2024, which means the latest an election can be held is the end of January 2025. Given …
Jamie Redman, Richard Crisp and Elizabeth Sanderson On November 22 2023, following publication of the Autumn Statement, central government outlined the latest plans to improve productivity and strengthen the national economy. These plans converge around several key policy intervention areas, which include building a sustainable domestic energy programme, delivering a world-class education system, reducing public …
As Chief Policy Fellow, Andy is part of the Y-PERN directorate providing overall strategic leadership of the programme, working closely with the Senior Programme Manager, Kayleigh Renberg-Fawcett. Andy leads on the coordination of the team of Y-PERN policy fellows across the region, and the delivery and evaluation of the four programme Work Packages. He has responsibility for delivering Work Package 3 which focuses on policy engagement training, dissemination, and community engagement. Andy is the key contact point for engagement and networking with academic and policy communities across Yorkshire and the UK more widely, and dissemination of Y-PERN outputs.
New job! I’m now a Y-PERN fellow, officially based in the Management School at Sheffield University, but mostly working with the South Yorkshire Combined Mayoral Authority (SYMCA, pronounced by folk who work there as ‘sim-ka’). Y-PERN (“Yorkshire & Humber Policy Engagement and Research Network”) is a pretty unique project – Research England funded it specifically to strengthen the glue between Yorkshire and Humber’s universities and its local and mayoral authorities, building on a memorandum of understanding between them. The project itself doesn’t have traditional academic research questions or output requirements; the glue-strengthening is the whole point.
Place-based approaches to policymaking seem to be gaining momentum in the UK. Whether people think it is cost-effective or feel it is just the right thing to do, the fact is that, over the last few years, there has been an increased interest in understanding the interconnections and relationships within a place and how working together can have a broader, deeper, and lasting change for the community. Within this context, in Hull and East Yorkshire, we have invited policymakers, academics and people with lived experience to sit at the same table, reflect on their role and take action and responsibility for improving the quality of life of their communities. In so doing, we have three underlying assumptions.
Elizabeth Sanderson and Dr Jamie Redman, Y-PERN Policy Fellows (South Yorkshire), at the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, Sheffield Hallam University Over the last few decades, the UK has seen a rise in low quality work (Goos and Manning, 2007). These are jobs which are broadly defined as low-skilled, low-paid, insecure and more …
Recently, I had the pleasure of attending the first Y-PERN Policy Fellows Development Day, hosted by the University of Bradford. Part of the core strategy of Yorkshire Universities is to work with policymakers nationally and in the region. One of the mechanisms by which we do this is through the Research England-funded Yorkshire and Humber Policy Engagement and Research Network (Y-PERN). Y-PERN’s multi and inter-disciplinary team of eleven Policy Fellows, covering all four sub/city-regions of Yorkshire, is an integrated network of knowledge brokers, connecting local and regional university research and ideas directly into Yorkshire’s policymaking communities.
