Innovation Strategy in the East of England Observatory

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Innovation Strategy in the East of England
Observatory Foresight

• Brian Allison
• Foresight RITTS Project Manager
• East of England Development Agency
• 8 November 2001

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Areas Covered

• East of England and the Innovation Strategy
• Observatory
• Foresight

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East of England and the Innovation Strategy
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The East of England

• 5.5M people
• 19,000 km2
• from London to remote coastal and rural areas
• medium-sized towns and cities
• diversity

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East of England data

• 76B economy employing 2.7M people
• major assets include
• - world class expertise in RD
• - excellence in further and higher education
• - clusters of leading high-tech businesses
• - one of the largest concentrations of new and
  growing businesses in the UK

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The role of EEDA

• 1 of 9 Regional Development Agencies
• main activities
• - co-ordinate regional economic strategy
• - funding programmes
• - working with partners

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Our vision is to...
make the East of England a world class
economy, renowned for its knowledge base, the
creativity and enterprise of its people and the
quality of life of all who live and work here
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East of England 2010 prosperity and opportunity
for all
1. Hamburg
4. London
6. Bremen
7. Lombardia
12. Bayern
13. Baden-Wurtemberrg
20. South East
22. Madrid
28. East of England
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East of England 2010 prosperity and opportunity
for all
1. East of England
2. Hamburg
4. London
6. Bremen
7. Lombardia
12. Bayern
13. Baden-Wurtemberrg
20. South East
22. Madrid
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The 6 key themes of the strategy

• Competitive businesses and organisations for a
  world class region
• Creativity, Innovation and Enterprise
• A clear identity and international profile
• Invest in success wherever it is found
• Regeneration plus supporting our people and our
  communities
• Leading edge infrastructure and high quality
  environment

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East of England innovation strategy

• First strategy published in October 1999
• Identified obstacles to Innovation
• This strategy underpinned by RITTS
• RITTS completed March 2001
• RITTS conclusions mainstreamed in Regional
  Economic Strategy East of England 2010
  prosperity and opportunity for all

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The 3 strategic themes

• Fostering an Innovation Culture
• Exploiting Regional Strengths
• Improving access to Innovation Technology
  support

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To achieve the Vision

• The culture and image of the East of England as a
  centre of Innovation and Technology must be
  reinforced
• Business awareness and uptake of Innovation and
  Technology support is limited and needs to be
  increased

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To achieve the Vision

• Networking between businesses and between other
  Innovation and technology organisations is
  crucial
• The East of England needs to make maximum use of
  its business-led research and development and do
  more to exploit commercially its University and
  college sector

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To achieve the Vision

• Addressing labour and skills shortages
• A strategic approach to the development and
  funding of Innovation and technology services
  across the East of England is needed

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Delivery

• Creation of the Innovation East Groupis key

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Innovation East

• Mission
• To provide a coherent strategic direction for
• the East of England Innovation priorities

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Innovation East - Some activities

• Coordination of current and new Innovation
  initiatives across the region (eg x marketing)
• Steer in terms of Innovation funding decisions
• Improve support activities
• Promote and engage regional networking
• To make sure that the RITTS Outputs are delivered

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East of England Observatory
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What Does the Observatory Do?

• Collecting, analysing and disseminating the data
  necessary to understand the socio-economic and
  environmental structure of the East of England
• The Observatory will assist the development of
  strategy and policy and will assist the
  monitoring of changes to the structure of the
  region

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Project History

• Feedback from regional partners has been very
  positive to the concept of an East of England
  Observatory
• Interest and feedback from UK Central Government
  and the Deputy Prime Minister has been favourable
• Observatory featured prominently in the East of
  England Regional Economic Strategy

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Definition

• The East of England Observatory is defined
  as a dedicated and interactive web tool seeking
  to collect, analyse and disseminate key regional
  information in order to present an accurate and
  continuously updated picture of the
  socio-economic and environmental structure of the
  East of England

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http//EastofEnglandObservatory.org.uk
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Main features

• Database of resources catalogued using the Dublin
  Core
• Database of regional information news items
• Database of people with interest in the region
• Partners are able to add to these databases as
  well as the Observatory Team
• The people search facility can be used to find
  partners for advice
• There is a discussion forum for partners

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• Latest News Contact Us About the Region
  Region In Figures Health Observatory About the
  Observatory About EEDA Dataset Guidelines
  Reference Manual Privacy Policy Terms of Use

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• By Theme Agriculture Rural Arts Tourism
  Heritage Commerce Industry Compendia
  Reference Crime Justice Economy Education
  Government Health Care Information
  Communications Technology Innovation
  Technology Transfer Labour Market Skills
  Media Natural Built Environment Planning
  Population Migration Research Organisations
  Social Inclusion Welfare Statistics(DATASETS)
  Statistics(Research Reports)
  Statistics(Resources) Transport Voluntary

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• By Geography Bedfordshire Cambridgeshire
  Essex EUROPEAN UNION Hertfordshire Luton
  Norfolk Peterborough REGIONAL - East of
  England Southend-on-Sea Suffolk Thurrock
  UNITED KINGDOM

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The users

• Over 100 organisations in the region signed up to
  use the site as partners, mainly public sector
• Over 600 individuals on Observatory mailing list,
  we email them each month with details of new
  additions to the site
• Site now receiving over 1,000 external hits per
  month
• Steering group representing GO, LSCs, LGC, Higher
  Education

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Development Observatory Data Module

• Potential for datasets to be remotely accessed
  across the internet
• Metadata becomes very important when drawing
  together data from many sources across the
  internet
• We are working closely with our partners to
  develop this facility and have held 2 development
  workshops earlier this year to prove the concept
• Have involved our partners in the design and are
  very interested in their feedback

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Regional Economic Strategy

• This third phase of the Observatory project links
  directly to the Regional Economic Strategy
• The indicators used to monitor the state of the
  region in the economic strategy will be included
  on the Observatory along with the underlying
  datasets

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Indicators to be monitored

• Over 50 socio-economic and environmental
  indicators will be monitored
• Monitoring will cover social, economic and
  environmental issues
• Full list of the indicators contained in the
  Regional Economic Strategy

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East of England Foresight
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In the East of England

• Appointed a Foresight Manager
• Using UK National Foresight as a basis for
  Strategy
• Engaging relevant business sectors
• Used Foresight to engage school children
• Looked to use the national Foresight Toolkit as a
  means of engaging business and to promote
  visioning techniques for SMEs

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BrianAllison_at_EEDA.org.uk www.EEDA.org.uk www.RIT
TS.org.uk http//EastofEnglandObservatory.org.uk
www.foresight.gov.uk