Issues for the Observatory to take forward…

The quarter four 2008 (PDF, 685KB) edition of the Observatory’s new-look The Oracle newsletter, is now available.

This edition reviews our 2008 annual conference, “Better Evidence, Better Policy” with reports on all of the talks and workshops from the day, as well as the main issues that we will be taking forward in 2009.

Podcasts of the day are still available (view in iTunes or another RSS reader).

We welcome your comments on the issues that we’re planning to progress from the day.

They are as follows:

1. Ensuring that the Observatory takes full account of cross-linkages between different issues as we take forward our programme of research.
2. Birmingham’s role and how it impacts on the rest of the West Midlands.
3. How links with Higher Education can be improved, particularly with enterprise, innovation and business.
4. Using a qualitative approach to investigate the importance of culture and attitude in the region and get underneath the numbers to find out about what drives people’s behaviour.
5. How can we learn lessons from elsewhere in the UK and the world?

Please add your comments below.