Strategic leadership in a creative economy

Creative Clusters is an independent policy conference in Glasgow (17-20 November 2008) that will examine the growth of the creative economy.
This seems like a timely event to bring together those working – not just within the creative industries – but also in initiatives to encourage creativity as a driver for businesses.
One such initiative in Birmingham [...]

Local Area Agreements: The next generation

In June 2008, 150 new Local Area Agreements (LAA) were signed off by central government. A Local Area Agreement is a three year agreement, based on local Sustainable Community Strategies, that sets out the priorities for a local area.
The 14 strategic authorities in the West Midlands each have a Local Area Agreement.

Guidance on using the Indices of Deprivation 2007 to identify deprived areas

The regional Office of National Statistics (ONS) team in our neighbouring East Midlands region have recently published a guide on how to use the Indices of Deprivation 2007, How to identify deprived areas using the Indices of Deprivation 2007.
This guide sets out in a step by step fashion how to:

Find the most deprived small areas [...]

Population estimates in the West Midlands

The Office for National Statistics released the 2007 mid year population estimates and 2006 mid year population estimates by ethnic group at Government Office Region level and down to Local Authority District level last week.
Data for the total population is available by five year age bands and broad age group (children, working age, and older [...]

Mapping waste in the food industry

New research jointly published by DEFRA and the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), Mapping waste in the food industry, assesses the amount of waste produced in the food industry.
The research, which was carried out by Oakdene Hollins, assessed member sites of the FDF with Shropshire sites producing the greatest quantity of food waste in 2006 [...]

NESTA Regional Innovation Index: call for ideas

The West Midlands Regional Observatory has begun a 3-year programme of research to support the work of the regional Innovation Technology Council.
One of our first contributions is to the call for ideas as part of the new Regional Innovation Index projects. Full details of the NESTA call for ideas are on www.innovationindex.org.uk or download the [...]

Sponsorship opportunities at the WMRO Annual Conference 2008: an update

The sponsorship opportunities available at this year’s annual conference are proving to be very popular. Exhibition stands from Geowise, ESRI UK and Renewal Magazine are confirmed with Renewal magazine also sponsoring the sustainable communities workshop and the Applied Research Centre in Sustainable Regeneration at Coventry University (SURGE) inserting flyers into delegate packs. Other companies are set [...]

Sponsorship opportunities at the WMRO Annual Conference 2008

Our 2008 Annual Conference will be held on Monday 13th October 2008 in Coventry and gives organisations the opportunity to raise their business profile amongst the key decision makers in the data, intelligence and research community within the West Midlands.

This year, the conference has again attracted several high profile speakers, including Liam Byrne, who will [...]

Life expectancy in the West Midlands

A recent press release from trade union GMB highlights the difference in life expectancy at birth across the West Midlands.
Women living in Solihull have the highest life expectancy in the region at 83.3 years with those living in Stoke-on-Trent having the lowest at 79.6.
For men, the difference is greater with those living in South Shropshire [...]

More economic pain before gain

On the same day that the Bank of England raised the increasing prospect that the UK economy will remain static, with the risk that we may flirt with recession (as defined by economists as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth), the West Midlands’ labour market received further bad news.
The latest data on the numbers claiming Job Seekers Allowance shows that the [...]

Building a Register of Consultants

We’re developing a new directory for public agencies and the voluntary sector to use when searching for organisations to invite to tender for research projects.

Why are we doing this?
The Register of Consultants aims to solve two issues originally identified by the Economy & Labour Force Group:

The same usual suspects are asked to carry out research [...]

Creative industries research from NESTA

Two research reports investigating the UK’s creative industries have recently been published by NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts:

Hidden Innovation in the Creative Industries
Beyond the Creative Industries

Hidden Innovation in the Creative Industries, published in July 2008, looks at the level and nature of innovation within the creative industries and identifies areas [...]

Creative and media sector skills review

Earlier this year, the Learning & Skills Council undertook a review of skills supply and demand for the creative and media sector in the West Midlands.
Amongst other interesting findings, the review found that employers perceive graduates to lack market-based experience and ‘job readiness’, suggesting that the education sector is struggling to link skills development with [...]

Changes to regional cultural co-ordination

Arts Minister, Margaret Hodge has announced the closure of the Regional Cultural Consortiums by March 2009.
Her intention is that in their place, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s four key agencies in the regions – Arts Council England, Sport England, English Heritage and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council – will have a duty [...]

Wind resources for the West Midlands

A new study has been published reviewing the economically viable wind resource across the West Midlands region and key wind development constraints based on the current status of wind technology.
The study assists in the initial screening of coarse areas with potential for wind development in the region and consisted of a desktop assessment based on [...]