WP3 Policy Mapping, Review and Analysis

This report presents the mapping, review and analysis of the most relevant LLL policies for young adults in Glasgow City Region and Aberdeen/ Aberdeenshire. The report first reviews the national Scottish LLL policies which influence the implementation of LLL for young adults in the two regions under study. This report provides findings and analysis to comply with the H2020 YOUNG_ADULLLT Research Project, Work Package 3 (WP3). We have used the requirements and guidance in the WP3 proposal to select two appropriate Functional Regions (FRs): The Glasgow City Region and Aberdeen/Aberdeenshire. These FRs provide a focus for the WP3 mapping but also frame the other data gathering for the YOUNG_ADULLLT project. The mapping has provided material to facilitate an understanding of the policy landscape, including the different policy sectors of the two FRs set in the national context. The mapping required the selection of three detailed examples of LLL/Skills policies with their associated material actions in each of the two FRs. Currently, we have mapped four in each FR. Our mapping reflects the distinctiveness of Scottish public policy in that national policies provide the main framework for regional and locally devolved enactment and associated actions

A Tale of Evaluation and Reporting in UK Smart Cities

Global trends towards urbanisation are associated with wide-ranging challenges and opportunities for cities. Smart technologies create new opportunities for a range of smart city development and regeneration programmes designed to address the environmental, economic and social challenges concentrated in cities. Whilst smart city programmes have received much publicity, there has been much less discussion about evaluation of smart city programmes and the measurement of their outcomes for cities. Existing evaluation approaches have been criticised as non-standard and inadequate, focusing more on implementation processes and investment metrics than on the impacts of smart city programmes on strategic city outcomes and progress. To examine this, the SmartDframe project conducted research on city approaches to the evaluation of smart city projects and programmes, and reporting of impacts on city outcomes. This included the ‘smarter’ UK cities of Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Milton Keynes and Peterborough. City reports and interviews with representative local government authorities informed the case study analysis. The report provides a series of smart city case studies that exemplify contemporary city practices, offering a timely, insightful contribution to city discourse about best practice approaches to evaluation and reporting of complex smart city projects and programmes

The British Library and the impact of research

Gives a critical history of the British Library approach to research and how it failed fully to engage with the Higher Education sector as it launched on a golden period od library research stimulated by the Follett Repor

DCMS does science: highlights from the launch of the DCMS Science and Research Advisory Committee (SRAC)

"Based on the presentations, discussions and Q&A sessions during the SRAC launch event, this publication: highlights the key themes discussed by speakers and launch attendees; summarises the main points from the speakers’ presentations; and, outlines the SRAC’s next steps." - page 7

Understanding digital eco-innovation in municipalities: An institutional perspective

Municipalities consume over 67% of global energy and are responsible for over 70% of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that rapid adjustments need to happen at a global level, or the effects of climate change will be irreversible. The contribution of municipalities is therefore vital if GHG emissions are to be reduced. Our research is timely in its exploration of the ways in which municipalities institutionalise environmental sustainability practices in and through Green digital artefacts. Using mechanism-based institutional theory as a lens, the paper presents the findings of three contrasting case studies of large municipalities in the United Kingdom in their respective programmes to leverage the direct, enabling and systemic effects of Green ICT in order to reduce GHG emission and achieve their eco-sustainability goals. The case sites are also regarded as exemplars for further research and practice on digital eco-innovation. The mechanism-based explanations illustrate how a social web of conditions and factors influence eco-sustainability outcomes. We conclude that the digital technology-enabled grassroots-based initiatives offer the best hope to begin the transition to sustainable climate change within municipalities. The contributions of our study are therefore both theoretical and practical

Call for action: ten lessons for local authority innovators

This publication shares 10 lessons on how to create innovative change in local government from the Creative Councils programme. Key findings New approaches are needed for costly social challenges posed by long–term youth unemployment and vulnerable families often living in places that feel as if they have been going backwards for decades. To create the space for alternative solutions to emerge, an essential first step is to adopt different vantage points. Unless councils can think differently and more creatively about risk, the odds of even the best idea making it from a Post–it note and into reality are not high.  Local government is in a trap. It needs to do more with less. The only way to pull off this trick is by working very differently with public services, communities and users to achieve better outcomes. And yet the radical innovation this implies often excites opposition – from users, citizens, politicians and staff – and that in turn entrenches the status quo. Yet strategies for escaping the trap are emerging all over the sector, and some of the best examples can be found in the Creative Councils programme that has been run jointly by Nesta and the Local Government Association over the past three years.   We can draw insights about the main ingredients needed for a successful innovation journey. Some of these ingredients will be familiar – the right kind of leadership, the ability to manage risk – but some less so. We have presented these insights in the form of ten lessons about innovating in the sector. These lessons aren’t the last word – but we hope that the insights they contain will act as a spur to innovators up and down the country who are trying to escape the trap. Authors: Sophia Parker and Charles Leadbeate