A new partnership
between Newcastle’s two universities and four of the region’s public bodies has
received significant funding to maximise opportunities for connecting academic
research to the needs of local communities.
The Insights North East (INE) project has been established through an existing partnership
between Newcastle University, Northumbria University,
Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, North of Tyne Combined Authority and
Newcastle City Council, and over time may expand to include other
partners including private sector companies and voluntary and community
organisations.
The Newcastle
University-led project has received £5.5M, including £2.8m from Research
England’s Development Fund. The remaining funding has been provided by the INE
partners.
INE aims to build a shared understanding of the knowledge and data within
each partner organisation and develop new ways of connecting and interrogating that
knowledge base so that regional policymakers can better address the needs of
local communities.
The project is
structured around three policy challenges that align with the expertise in the
two universities and the priorities of policymakers in the region – improving health and wellbeing, a just transition to net zero, and
delivering inclusive growth.
By bringing this
knowledge together, INE will create better links between academics and
policymakers to close the gap between publicly funded research and policy
design and implementation and ensure that policies that address these three key
challenges meet the needs of communities in the region.
INE will be led
by Dr Louise Kempton, from Newcastle University’s Centre for Urban and
Regional Development Studies, who said: “This is a strategically significant
initiative for the region that takes our partnerships to a new level. INE has been designed and developed in collaboration
with partners who operate at the heart of our communities to ensure it delivers
actionable outcomes that will make a difference to the lives of people in our
region. With this funding, INE will build a bridge between the worlds of
research and policymaking.”
One of the first
objectives of the project will be to map and analyse the many areas in which effective
research and policy collaboration between INE partners is already taking place.
INE will also gather national and international evidence on best-practice
regional research and policy engagement activities to better understand ‘what
works’ for effective research to policy translation.
Additionally, against
each policy challenge area INE will build and curate a web-based directory of
researchers, policymakers and practitioners and host a comprehensive programme
of events and workshops for academics and policymakers to share information
about existing data, develop links around common themes of interest and build
relationships that will shape future research agendas.
As a result, INE
will directly help to leverage investment for the region by providing local,
place-based evidence for future funding opportunities, and ensure that future
policies are based on an understanding of the needs of end-users in the region.
The three policy
challenges were identified following work by Urban Foresight that showed there
was a demand among regional policymakers to have better information with which
they could make locally-relevant decisions in these areas.
Professor
Chris Day, Vice-Chancellor and President, Newcastle University, said: “We
face a range of deeply complex problems in our region that can only be solved
by working in collaboration. INE will underpin and add value to these
partnerships by providing the evidence to guide effective decision making on
issues that involve billions
of pounds of public spending. This will deliver better outcomes that
benefit the people, economy and environment of the North East, and ensure that
‘levelling up’ is done in an inclusive way.”
It is hoped that
INE will become an exemplar for how - by working collaboratively with their
public and health sector partners - universities can collaborate to maximise
the potential for university research to inform place-based policymaking and
ensure future research agendas are demand-led, shaped by the needs of the place.
It will share
learnings and successes with the higher education, health and public sectors
across the UK and internationally, providing a blueprint for how other places
can establish their own place-based initiative for the design and delivery of
local initiatives.
Pam Smith, Chief Executive,
Newcastle City Council, said: “The work of INE will be transformative to
the council’s policy making capacity, providing us with rich insights into
evidence and data through globally leading academic expertise, as well as
increased collaboration with partners to share challenges and develop solutions
to tackle critical issues that have a profound impact on residents and
businesses across the city. This will in turn directly impact on our decision
making about services to residents, and how we invest the council’s budget to
support the city’s inclusive economic growth.”
Dame Jackie Daniel, The
Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Newcastle
Hospitals has a proud record of collaboration with partners across the City and
wider region to deliver the maximum positive impact on the health, wealth and
wellbeing of the population we collectively serve. We see the development of
INE as a unique opportunity to further this work and to apply leading research
expertise from our universities to the steer the NHS’ approaches to population
health and sustainability, and more widely in our role working with partners as
an anchor institution.”
Professor Tom Lawson, Interim
Vice-Chancellor for Northumbria University, said: “INE is an important
collaboration between regional and city partners and Newcastle’s two
universities. It will enable our research to support and inform policy and
decision-making to deliver a more prosperous, fairer and sustainable future for
Newcastle and the North East. Deepening our partnership with Newcastle
University will also strengthen our combined research power, enabling further
collaborations which will have a positive impact on peoples’ lives.”
Sir James Mackey, Chief
Executive, Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We
are increasingly using local data and shared insights from our clinical teams
and public health practitioners from our local authority partners to guide our
work on health inequalities. Having an increased and more targeted evidence
base from INE, coupled with specific policy outputs, will help us to better achieve
our programme objectives and benefit our patients and population.”
Henry Kippin, Chief Executive,
North of Tyne Combined Authority, said: “Insights North East will help us
to address the big opportunities and challenges for the region – providing the
evidence base for investments that improve our economic, social, environmental
and public service infrastructure. I am excited about the new insight,
capacity and collaboration that INE will bring to the region to drive this work
forward. INE will be an important partner in strengthening devolution and
helping the region to make progress towards inclusive economic growth, Covid
recovery and our net zero transition.”
Longer term, the
vision is for INE to become a National Innovation Centre for Policy, with INE
leading to the establishment
of a new policy research hub in the North East that will harness the knowledge
and expertise of each partner, maximise the opportunities for knowledge
transfer and place an evidence-based approach at the centre of policymaking
across multiple sectors.
For more
information about Insights North East visit www.insightsnortheast.co.uk
