City-REDI is focussed on places and how key policies come together in a locality. Furthering our knowledge and understanding of how regions can capitalise on their heritage, assets and capabilities to improve their potential for growth.
Looking at how cities, towns and rural areas have competitive (dis)advantages that will be essential to shaping their economic and social future. We focus on modelling places, their attributes and relationships to one another to enable us to understand potential futures, impacts and risks to place-based growth, productivity and inclusivity.
We are also developing our understanding of how resilient regions are in the face of shocks, technological, political, economic or social. Our study of the regional impacts and implications of Brexit has shown how trade dependencies and other kinds of linkages to other parts of the world can constrain or benefit regional economies in the face of radical external change.
Key to our research is understanding how places can realise their full potential and how different growth pathways represent different trade-offs in terms of positive or negative outcomes for different stakeholders. Policy interventions can affect the growth and performance of businesses and the work opportunities, income levels and life chances of people and communities. Policymakers face the challenge of supporting both, with limited resources. City-REDI works in partnership with local leaders and stakeholders, developing tools and methodologies which strengthen decision making in Local Enterprise Partnerships, Mayoral Combined Authorities and pan-regional bodies like the Midlands Engine to enable better growth for all.
Research projects