Articles and other material
This page provides an introduction to the detailed work 3LE has undertaken since 2009. There are links to both public on-line material and papers uploaded to the 3LE database. Obviously work that is delivered to specific clients remains private to and owned by them until such time as they make it publicly available. However, 3LE is able to present:
- Industrial and innovation strategies – with the requirements to produce Local Industrial Strategies (LIS) in 2018/19, and an almost universal ambition to foster a high-value knowledge-based economy, have a look at 3LE’s current work on LIS’s in mayoral, non-mayoral and EU contexts; three generic briefings on the topic; work on smart specialisation (as one approach to LIS formulation) undertaken in the middle of the decade; and a number of specific sector and functional studies.
- Enhanced devolution and place-based leadership – supporting clients with city and local growth deals, and with devolution agreements has been one of the major areas of work since late 2012. Making the new intermediate tiers of sub-national leadership and governance work (including recent commissions with the two largest Mayoral Combined Authorities) has to be rooted in medium and longer-term visions of the sort of places we wish to become.
- Universities and anchor institutions – the importance of universities to the places where they are located was fully explored in the flagship report of the University of Warwick Chancellor’s Commission on 2015-16. However, 3LE is now taking this much further forward – testing and developing the whole basis of anchor institution theories and practice. Augmenting the core paper, have a look at this recent (July 2018) submission to the Civic University Commission in collaboration with Plymouth College of Art. It gives the state of play in our thinking on the ‘anchor institution revolution’ we consider is required between HEIs and places to meet the challenges of the 2020s.
- Local Government institutional strengthening – It is rare that a 3LE intervention in England does not have a major local government (LA) dimension. Work directly with or about local authorities is showcased in this attachment. It includes leadership and management development of LAs as institutions, and their shaping of the places for which they are responsible.
- Assembling and interpreting evidence in new and novel ways – Evidence-based policy development is central to most of the choices leadership-teams have to make. But how do you assess what voluminous intelligence and analysis is telling us? And what it isn’t, and where the gaps are? This attachment showcases some of the more interesting insights that 3LE’s work has surfaced – although many studies remain behind the paywalls of commissioning clients.
Further subject-based material of this character shall be uploaded in the coming weeks. But I have been delighted to produce a number of series of both academic and policy literature.
My academic portfolio is summarized and signposted here. It includes landmark work with CURDS on decentralization; the first comprehensive LEP audit in 2012-13; pieces on smart specialization, internationalization, and the ‘long march’ for regional cities; in addition to the universities and place-based material mentioned above.
I am proud to be a longstanding associate of LGIU, producing over 40 briefings for local authorities and partners on key policy issues such as local growth, devolution, evidence-based policy-making and a breadth of other topics. Although behind the paywall, you can get a sense of the portfolio through the hyperlink. You can always contact me if you wish to obtain further details.
