Focus UK

Cheshire, Lancashire and Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) represent a coterminous North West Coastal Arc geography with common challenges and opportunities as evidenced in their Local Industrial Strategies (LIS’), Strategic Economic Plans (SEPs) and Science & Innovation Audits (SIAs).

They are part of the MIT REAP UK program to assist their partners with understanding their regional complementarity and equip them to implement a strategy at scale for transitioning to an innovative digital and low carbon economy.

The Heart of the South West LEP, is a partnership between Local and District Authorities, Higher and Further Education Institutions, and the private sector across Plymouth, Devon, Somerset, and Torbay.

They are joining the MIT REAP UK program for the opportunity to get support that is tailored to their local business environment and raise firm-level productivity. Utilizing the fact that the HotSW is at a stage where it is working to translate evidence into effective policy.

With an economy worth £24.5bn in GVA per annum, equivalent to around a quarter of the East Midlands total, Leicester and Leicestershire is home to over 42,000 businesses. Using a robust evidence base that draws on a mix of published data, forecasts, consultations, and strategy documents as well as existing studies and business surveys, a work of the Local industrial strategy nearing completion.

Innovation across the LLEP area is supported by the presence and associated activities of its three universities, that are leading research and proactively engage with local communities and businesses. Their involvement with the MIT REAP UK Program is aimed at receiving the expertise, resources and support to enable the LLEP to work towards developing a local innovation ecosystem framework focused on interdependent roles of innovative and entrepreneurial capacity.

Overseen by the North East LEP Board and feeding into the LEP Business Growth, Skills and Innovation Advisory Boards the North East LEP core team consists of senior representation from the North East LEP (including the SME Board Representative), regional universities of Sunderland, Newcastle, Northumbria and Durham, North of Tyne Mayoral Combined Authority (Newcastle, North Tyneside, Northumberland), North East Combined Authority (Sunderland, South Tyneside, Gateshead, County Durham) and representatives from regional SMEs and industrial clusters.

They are part of the MIT REAP UK program to build on their existing evidence base to guide the establishment of their ecosystem that will drive the delivery of the North East Local Industrial Strategy (LIS) and level up entrepreneurial activity and firm level innovation and productivity.

Sheffield City Region is focusing its Strategic Economic Plan on supporting the development of collaborative business ecosystems that cultivate entrepreneurial cultures and nurture innovative companies. They are working to establish new partnerships with businesses, unlocking growth contingent upon social impact whilst supporting our transition to a low carbon economy.

Taking part in the MIT REAP UK program they are aiming to support the SCR ecosystem by acting as a catalyst in support of the development of innovation districts in areas such as Advanced Manufacturing, the development of effective supply chains and the emerging innovation ecosystems that support them.

Formed with senior leaders representative of the West Midlands’ ecosystem who bring insights and networks, the West Midlands Combined Authority is focused on how to develop the ecosystem to increase SME engagement and innovation capacity as a key driver of productivity, particularly in the manufacturing supply chains sector. Their involvement in MIT REAP is geared to help strengthen their collaboration to address the West Midlands’ productivity gap by increasing process innovation by SMEs within the manufacturing supply chains.