‘Starting and scaling up business…in a period of recovery’

Monika Antal, YU Executive Manager

Last week, a request landed on our ‘virtual desk’, originating from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and linked to a series of economic recovery roundtables that are expected to inform the emergency budget announcement scheduled for the second week in July.

Given the challenging turnaround time, YU, together with our colleagues from the N8 Research Partnership, agreed to pool our respective ideas and produce a joint response. The topics where BEIS were seeking inputs, included: innovation, investment, net zero (carbon), levelling-up and (business) start-ups and scaleups. I was asked to contribute to the the start-up and scaleup theme, and was set the following exam questions:

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Innovation Deals

Dr Peter O’Brien, Executive Director

Tom Forth and Richard Jones’ recent report, ‘The Missing £4 Billion’, published by the innovation specialists, Nesta, presents in-depth analysis and a series of thought-provoking, yet practical, proposals on how to rebalance the current uneven geography of research and development (R&D) spending within the UK. The report is timely and has gained much attention, not least for the case the authors make for government to devolve 25 per cent of the planned uplift in R&D funding to nations, cities and regions. A stark statistic contained in the report is that large parts of the UK, including Yorkshire, are missing out on £4 billion a year in public R&D funding.  Add to that private investment, and the same regions are unable to access a further £8 billion per annum. Not insignificant sums when you consider the total investment that is needed to ‘level up’ the nations and regions.

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COVID-19 and beyond: understanding student expectations

Professor Roger Lewis, YU Associate

At this time of year prospective students gear up for university. Amidst the uncertainty, 2020 might be no exception despite some of the current thinking. What, in the current climate are students expecting in September? Anecdotal evidence suggests that ‘the student experience’ (i.e. ‘being at uni’) is the first thought of many. It’s always been a moot point as to how far their provider’s responsibility extends into that wider area so let’s focus on specifically educational provision. Last week’s 2020 HEPI/Advance HE Student Academic Experience Survey offers some initial insights at a time of the lockdown period.

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YU submission to the Yorkshire & North Lincolnshire All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG)

Background: the APPG is keen to make representations to the government with clear policy proposals that would support business, education, culture and sport and other sectors to rebuild after the lockdown.

Read moreYU submission to the Yorkshire & North Lincolnshire All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG)

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This week’s leadership message comes from our Partnership Director Ian Holmes and Tony Jamieson, Director of Transformation for Yorkshire & Humber Academic Health Science Network.

As published on the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership website on 29 May 2020

” Hello, our names are Ian and Tony,

The West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership is founded on the principle of collaboration.  Working together, across health and care partners, with local communities gives us the best chance of improving health and care for everyone.  This collaboration stretches beyond health and care organisations.  Yorkshire benefits from a vibrant university sector, which works closely in partnership through groups, such as Yorkshire Universities.  Higher education is a huge asset to our region and it can be a critical factor in the West Yorkshire response to Covid-19.

Read moreThis week’s leadership message comes from our Partnership Director Ian Holmes and Tony Jamieson, Director of Transformation for Yorkshire & Humber Academic Health Science Network.

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Yorkshire Universities & Arup regional roundtable on the climate emergency: a summary

Monika Antal and James Ransom

The COVID-19 crisis presents an opportunity to accelerate efforts to tackle the climate emergency that should be capitalised on, representatives from Yorkshire’s universities agreed at the 5 May virtual roundtable convened by Yorkshire Universities and Arup. Several key themes emerged:

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Learning lessons from the Urban Living Partnership programme

Monika Antal, Executive Manager

In February, which seems a like a lifetime ago now, and when it was still permissible to gather in large groups, YU invited academics from Newcastle University to Leeds in order to meet university counterparts in Yorkshire, as well as local authority and health officials, in order to present findings from a newly-published report on some of the lessons learned from the Urban Living Partnership (ULP) pilots.

Find out more about why ULPs are important in these brief interviews by two of the report authors: Louise Kempton and David Marlow.

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Federations of Universities: What could we learn from elsewhere?

Guest blog by Kevin Richardson, Local Academy

Introduction 

Universities UK has called for the establishment of a ‘transformation fund’ to support universities over the next two to three years to reshape and consolidate through ‘federations’ and partnerships, or potentially merge with other higher education institutions, further education colleges or private providers’.

Read moreFederations of Universities: What could we learn from elsewhere?

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The Coronavirus Pandemic: Universities and the Economic Recovery of Place

Dr Peter O’Brien, YU Executive Director

Introduction

The government has pledged to ‘level up’ the country. It has also specifically committed to produce a ‘place strategy’. Work was underway on both fronts, but this has understandably slowed as the government has focused all its efforts on addressing the Coronavirus pandemic.

Read moreThe Coronavirus Pandemic: Universities and the Economic Recovery of Place

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