WMREDI Publications

How can Universities, Colleges and Employers Deliver the Skills for Local Productivity, Innovation and Prosperity?
Anne Green, Chris Millward, Abigail Taylor - December 2022

This policy briefing reflects on discussions during the Universities and Regions Forum skills seminar organised by City-REDI / WMREDI in 2022. They outline fundamental challenges which need to be addressed to improve skills systems in England.

Find out more about this work - Mobilising the Power of Universities in Levelling Up: Scoping a UK Policy Forum. 

Influencing local employment support: reflections from two Mayoral Combined Authority Innovation Pilots

December 2022, Policy Briefing - Anne Green, Sue Jarvis, Abigail Taylor and Belinda Tyrrell 

This policy briefing wtih the Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice and Place, University of Lverpool reflects on the lessons of two local employment support pilots, in the West Midlands and Liverpool City Region, it explores how collaborative working across different tiers of government, and between the public, private and voluntary sectors, can deliver locally sensitive solutions to worklessness.

Find out more about our work on skills and local labour markets

Local Skills Report Supporting Evidence 

May 2022 - Produced by Professor Anne Green with contributions from Alex Smith. 

This paper was produced for the WMCA’s Skills Advisory Panel and Jobs and Skills Delivery Board. It should be used inform thinking around education, skills and employment policy and programmes in the region, specifically the adult education budget and inform the update of the 2021/22 Local Skills Report.

Find out more about this work - West Midlands Local Skills Report Evidence Base 

Graduate Pathways: Identifying Patterns of Regional Retention and Attraction

January 2022 - Kostas Kollydas and Anne Green

This report utilises Graduate Outcomes Survey data for the academic year 2018/19 to shed light on retention/migration patterns of recent graduate workers across the UK regions. 

Find out more about this work - Graduate Attraction and Retention at Regional Scale.

Regional Brain Drain and Gain in the UK: Regional Patterns of Graduate Retention and Attraction

November 2021 - André Carrascal-Incera, Anne Green, Kostas Kollydas, Alex Smith & Abigail Taylor. 

New workers with higher education qualifications can improve and level up a region’s skills base and contribute significantly to regional economic and productivity growth. This WMREDI report draws on Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data for the academic years 2015/16, 2016/17 and 2018/19 to explore graduate mobility patterns across the UK regions. 

Find out more about this work - Graduate Attraction and Retention at Regional Scale.

Priorities for up-skilling and re-skilling: what role can and should universities play? - Full report 

Priorities for up-skilling and re-skilling: what role can and should universities play? - Policy briefing

May 2021 - Dr Abigail Taylor, Professor Anne Green and Dr Sara Hassan

This report and policy briefing summarises findings from a research project examining the role of universities in skills and regional economic development. It identifies key short and medium-term priorities for the up-skilling and re-skilling of school leavers, graduates and existing employees in the West Midlands. It analyses the current and potential future role of universities within this.

It is based on analysis of 22 interviews conducted in winter and spring 2020/2021 with universities and selected colleges in each Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) area in the West Midlands Combined Authority area (WMCA), as well as their partner organisations. It contrasts experiences across the various universities.

Find out more about this work - Universities, Skills and Regional Economic Strategies

West Midlands Local Skills Plan - Evidence Report
December 2020 - Alex Smith 

This evidence base aims to understand in detail how the supply of skills in the West Midlands Region matches up to current and future demands. This analysis will support the West Midlands Skills Advisory Panel, which is intended to provide valuable insight to the Government's Skills and Productivity Board.

Find out more about this work - Understanding and Addressing Skills Impacts and Needs

Productivity in the West Midlands
Melissa Wickham, January 2023

The report is written by Melisa Wickham and is in collaboration with the West Midlands Combined Authority.

This report focuses on bringing together readily available ONS data to better understand the labour productivity gap in the West Midlands.

This report focuses on labour productivity – which measures how much output is produced per unit of labour input. There are varying measures of labour input, determined by data availability. Ideally, the measure should reflect what goes into the production process – it should be based on actual hours worked and quality-adjusted (for skills, education, experience levels etc.). Readily available estimates are often not produced to this ideal. The labour productivity data used herein are not quality adjusted and use a mix of hours and more simple measures of per worker or per filled job. In reality, using hours or workers as the productivity denominator often makes little difference to the growth in productivity observed or the relative productivity picture across the UK.

Find out more about this work - Productivity in the West Midlands. 

Clean Growth Case Study: Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP) and Tyseley Energy Park
July 2022, Policy briefing - Juliane Schwarz

The aim of this case study is to understand the value and function of public funding by the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP) into clean growth initiatives, such as Tyseley Energy Park (TEP), and how this supports clean growth in the West Midlands to become a net zero carbon economy by 2041. This case study report describes the background of TEP and its development, its significance for energy innovation and clean growth, the impact of public funding by the GBSLEP and lessons from the case of GBSLEP funding at TEP for clean growth.

Find out more about this work - Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership Secondment

Directory of University Business Support Interventions
April 2022, George Bramley, Samatha Lithgow, Juliane Schwarz and Freya Williams

This directory was developed to provide an overview of business support interventions in the West Midlands where a university is the primary or a significant partner in the delivery of support. It was developed over 2021 and provides a snapshot of publicly funded business support.It includes schemes that have been funded in the last rounds of the European Regional Development Fund and other sources where information is publicly available.

The directory was created to:

• Provide an overview of activity (scale and scope)
• Provide a sampling frame to investigate the impact of university-based support for business.

Given the changing funding environment, it does not provide a definitive list of current programmes rather it provides a record of support that is or has been recently available at the time it was prepared.

Find out more about this work - Business Support in the West Midlands. 

University-Industry Relationships Facilitated: The Case of Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership Growth Hub
July 2022 - Freya Williams, Juliane Schwarz, Alice Pugh

The aim of this case study is to understand:
• business support offered by universities
• how this is facilitated by a partner organisation (Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP) Growth Hub)
• what kind of support is drawn upon by GBSLEP Growth Hub.

This aims to demonstrate how close links between regional economic development bodies and anchorinstitutions, such as universities, help to support businesses in the GBSLEP area.

Find out more about this work - Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership Secondment

Labour Market Disconnect: High Level of Unemployment in the Region and a Record Number of Vacancies for Jobs and Apprenticeships

December 2021, Policy briefing  -  Juliane Schwarz, Alice Pugh, Henrietta Breukelaar, Anne Green, George Bramley. 

Nationally and internationally, there is a disconnect between high levels of unemployment and a record numbers of vacancies for both jobs and apprenticeships. The current disconnect is based on the number and types of jobs on offer on the one hand, and the available workforce on the other hand. This current labour market unbalance is expected to ease over the next 12 to 24 months, although it is not expected to disappear altogether for some time. Whilst this problem isn’t unique to the UK, it is likely that Brexit has exacerbated some of the problems. There is a need to understand the disconnect in the labour market between high levels of unemployment and a record numbers of vacancies for both jobs and apprenticeships. Reasons for this are not always clear; rather they are complex and interrelated. This report seeks to set out to highlight issues observed and discussed by various stakeholders. In putting together this report we encountered challenges around the availability of data and the nature of the evidence base. As a result, some issues identified are based on insights from a range of sources.

Find out more about this work - Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership Secondment

Public Research & Development investment into the West Midlands (data sets)
June 2021 - Simon Collinson and Kelvin Humphreys

STEM assets in the West Midlands innovation landscape: Warwick Manufacturing Group

STEM Assets: Tysley Energy Park
April 2022, Simon Collinson, Robert Lyram, Chloe Billings

STEM Assets: Warwick Manufactoring Park
March 2022, Simon Collinson, Robert Lyram, Chloe Billings

Economic Recovery Post COVID-19: The MIT Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Programme (REAP)
September 2020 - Dr Chloe Billing on behalf of the West Midlands MIT-REAP team

Economic resilience to shocks: implications for labour markets
February 2021 - Economic Resilience Discussion Document, prepared by Dr Tasos Kitsos

9DF: A nine-dimensional framework for community engagement
Dr Lucy Natarajan and Dr Sara Hassan, May 2024

Social Prescribing for Young People in the West Midlands: The Potential Impact on Employment and the Economy: Final Report and Evaluation Framework 
Dr Joanne Mills, Professor Laura Caulifield, Dr Rachel Hopley, Emma Latham, November 2023

Social Prescribing for Young People in the West Midlands: The Potential Impact on Employment and the Economy: Evaluation Framework and Executive Summary
Dr Joanne Mills, Professor Laura Caulifield, Dr Rachel Hopley, Emma Latham, November 2023

Summary Recommendations Report, Social Prescribing for Young People in the West Midlands: The Potential Impact on Employment and the Economy
Dr Joanne Mills, Professor Laura Caulfield and Emma Latham, August 2023

Research Digest: Social Prescribing for Young People in the West Midlands: The Potential Impact on Employment and the Economy
Dr Joanne Mills, Francesca Hutchin and Dr Rachel Hopley, January 2023

Equality Act 2010
Dr Maryna Ramcharan, August 2022

 Which Parliamentary Constituency will most likely face homelessness rise?
Dr Maryna Ramcharan, January 2022

Income Inequality, Policies and Inclusive Growth
November 2021 - Dr Maryna Ramcharan

Embedding Local Community Engagement in University ‎Strategy Development: Reflections From Universities in Birmingham
February 2021 - Cepeda-Zorrilla, M., Taylor, A., Hassan S., and Green, A

Covid-19 recovery planning, partnership working and the role of universities in city-regions
October 2021 - Charlotte Hoole, Abigail Taylor, Hannes Read and Anne Green

Delivering Levelling-Up Report
September 2021 - LIPSIT Project Team

Achieving Levelling-Up: The Structures and Processes Needed
November 2020 - LIPSIT Project Team

Investing in infrastructure – enabling fairer growth
The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) and City-REDI / WMREDI, March 2022. 

Investing in regional equality – lessons from four cities
The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) and City-REDI / WMREDI, February 2022.

Investing in regional equality – lessons from four cities: Metrics and a framework for designing effective policies
The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) and City-REDI / WMREDI, February 2022. 

Levelling Up. What is it and can it work?
Centre for Inequality and Levelling Up (CEILUP) at the University of West London. Contribution from Dr Abigail Taylor called "How can the UK learn from international experience to level up? Drawing on research from the Industrial Strategy Council", January 2022. 

What does it take to “level up” places?
Dr Abigail Taylor, Skye Sampson and Anna Romaniuk, January 2021.

Devolution and Governance Structures in the UK: Lessons from Evidence
Regan A., Quinn M., Romaniuk A., Sampson S., Stratton T., Brittain B. and Taylor A, 2021

Mapping the architecture of economic development policy and strategy across the Midlands Engine pan-region
Nottingham Trent University, IREP, Green, A., Rositter, W. , Taylor, A., Hoole, C., Riley, R., Karagounis, K. and Pugh, A., 2021

Geographical scales and functions: The case of the Midlands Engine
Report prepared for the Midlands Engine Independent Economic Review by Green A. and Rossiter W, 2019

Connecting Communities
George Bramley, Abigail Taylor and Anne Green - November 2022

An evalution of the Connecting Communities voluntary employment support programme funded by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and procured and overseen by the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA).

Find out more about this project - Evaluation of Connecting Communities. 

Evaluation of No_Code Pilot
November 2022 - George Bramley, Alice Pugh and Hannes Read

Digital Innovator Ideator Evaluation
October 2023

Evaluation of West Midlands Cultural and Creative Social Enterprise Pilot Programme
September 2022

Evaluation of West Midlands Cultural and Creative Social Enterprise Pilot Programme - This file may not be suitable for users of assistive technology.

Virtual Internships - The Context
Johannes Read, Connor McFadden, Elizabeth Williams - July 2022

Student Virtual Internship Toolkit
Johannes Read, Connor McFadden, Elizabeth Williams - July 2022

Businesses Virtual Internship Toolkit
Johannes Read, Connor McFadden, Elizabeth Williams - July 2022

Staff Virtual Internship Toolkit
Johannes Read, Connor McFadden, Elizabeth Williams - July 2022

Pivot and Prosper Evaluation Report
June 2021 - George Bramley, Alice Pugh and Juliane Schwartz

Rapid Review of Evaluations and Evaluative Studies of Cultural and Heritage Sector Activity in the West Midlands
February 2022

Knowledge Exchange Funding: Novel Evaluation Methodologies. Phase Two. Final Report
October 2021

Compendium of Evaluation and Appraisal Resources
September 2021

Knowledge Exchange funding: A review of novel evaluation methodologies. Final report
November 2019