Sign-up here to receive the monthly iED bulletin
Sign-up here to receive the monthly iED bulletin
Geopolitical change is reshaping where capital, research partners and talent go. Sam Markey, co-author of the new Local Power, Global Reach toolkit, sets out how places can respond with more creative and energetic partnership building.
Three things to take away
Shifting geopolitics is opening new doors
The settlement that has shaped international economic relationships since the Second World War is fraying. For decades UK places could build their international strategies on an open trading order anchored by the United States. That assumption no longer holds. Supply chains are being redrawn, trade relationships are under strain, and investors, universities and governments are reassessing where they feel safe.
That is hard on places whose investment pipelines, student recruitment or visitor markets leaned on one or two countries. It is also creating openings. Canadian firms are moving investment away from the US, Indian businesses are diversifying their international footprint and European partners are rethinking supply chain dependencies. Partners everywhere are looking for new counterparts, and UK regions have a great deal to offer them in universities, distinctive industries, cultural institutions and diaspora links.
The question is whether places are ready to receive them.
Many places start from a fragmented base
The Commission on Devolution and Diplomacy, which reported at the inaugural UK Global R&D and Science Investment Summit earlier this year, traced the problem back to 2010. Since Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) were abolished, and through austerity, Brexit and the pandemic, international activity in most English regions has become fragmented and uneven. A few places kept well-resourced operations. Many more became reactive, and the gap keeps growing.
There is more support available than many places use. Each Mayoral Strategic Authority has a dedicated FCDO account manager, several research councils assign a key account manager to each authority, and No.10 North now engages mayors regularly. Trade Envoys, the GREAT Campaign and VisitBritain’s Destination Development Partnerships can all extend a place’s reach. That support goes furthest for places that have done the groundwork at home.
Investors can tell when a place is not ready
At the Commission’s launch, Laura Citron OBE, Chief Executive of London & Partners, put it in one line: “Before you market, be ready to receive.” Richard Dawson, Economic Advisor at Newcastle City Council, made the same point during a Property Forum panel we both sat on in September. “You can turn people off if you present stuff to the market that’s half-baked, if you haven’t lined up the ducks. So we’re moving a little slower to make sure that what we bring forward is market-ready.”
Readiness also means showing your own commitment. Jaime Moreno of Acacias Capital, who has spent several years promoting the UK to Latin American investors, told me it’s much easier to sell UK opportunities overseas “if you go and talk to investors with the government sitting next to you as a co-investor”. Michelle Percy, CEO of Develop North PLC, reported a similar experience, with prospective overseas investors keen to know “are your own people investing in you?” A place that brings its land, its planning team and some of its own capital to the table is easier to back.
It also means knowing what you offer that a partner can’t find elsewhere. Liverpool City Region learned that Life Sciences was too broad a label. Detailed sub-sector mapping revealed world-class strength in infectious disease and vaccine manufacturing, and showed how that complemented Manchester. In 2026 Liverpool presented with Manchester, Oxford and Cambridge at BIO International, with a joint proposition which was far stronger for being specific and joined up.
New partners still have to be found
A credible strategy engages two or three priority markets deeply, keeps a second tier for specific opportunities and holds the rest on a watching brief. Greater Manchester sets different goals for each market: net-zero and technology with Japan, tech growth with Austin, diaspora links with Sylhet. Choosing also means stopping. In 2011 Doncaster reviewed and cancelled its international relationships.
Reading local growth plans, I’m struck by how many target the same handful of markets. As Juliet Gamlin, Inward Investment Manager, Invest in Cardiff, reflected on the aforementioned Property Forum panel: “We go to the same places every year, the same investment opportunities, and it’s a saturated market. So we should be looking for niche markets now that are going to create opportunities for us, which are maybe untapped by others.”
That is the thinking behind the UK–LatAm Investment Bridge. Latin American capital is patient and relationship-led, and few UK regions are seeking it out. Latin American family offices have long defaulted to the US and Spain. Today’s volatility gives the UK an opening to make its case to them, built on its rule of law and stability.
Winning a new partner’s interest is however just one part of the puzzle.
Landing and deepening partnerships takes curators as well as hunters
Many international teams will recognise the distinction: place marketing creates the conditions for interest, and curation creates the conditions for commitment. The skills that win a new partner (short time horizons, a focus on the deal, comfort with rejection) can work against the slower job of building trust. Teams measured only on pipeline will keep hiring and rewarding hunters.
Relationship-led capital rewards that patience. A first conversation leads to a first investment, and a good experience builds momentum. “You only need one that is happy, and then you get the herd,” Jaime says. Juliet describes how Cardiff plans for this: “We’ve got a whole portfolio of investments, so if they do one, there’s a roll-on, so they can carry on the story and stay in a relationship with us.”
Curators also work to diffuse and deepen partnerships across strands. Greater Manchester’s partnership with Osaka began as a net-zero policy exchange and grew into research collaboration, technology trials with Japanese firms and cultural exchange. That kind of diversity breeds resilience.
Partnership across the whole place carries the strategy
Five groups anchor this work: strategic authorities, local authorities, universities, cultural, sporting and heritage assets, and internationally engaged industry. Each measures success differently. Universities count research income and students, cultural institutions value reach, and councils look for investment and jobs. Civic university agreements, growth companies and shared delivery plans help turn international activity into results each partner recognises. As the Commission found, the most common failure is “not a shortage of ambition but a shortage of co-ordination”.
Start with an honest look across your partners
The places that do best over the next few years will tell a clear story about themselves, go out to find new partners, and look after them once they arrive.
For more on how to do this, with frameworks, checklists and case studies from Liverpool to Fukuoka, Local Power, Global Reach is free to read. I co-wrote the toolkit with Jack Shaw and Alex Favier for the Invest in UK University R&D Midlands campaign, and the examples in this article are drawn from its case studies. A good place to start is its five-question self-diagnostic. Ask each of your anchor partners to complete it separately, then compare results. Where your answers differ, you have found the conversation that needs to happen next.
Sam Markey is Founder and Managing Director of Recurve, which helps places to mobilise the resources needed for local renewal, including running the UK–LatAm Investment Bridge with Acacias Capital. Recurve’s free Global Partnerships Readiness Check is also available. Recurve is an Awards Partner at the iED Annual Awards 2026, sponsoring the Collaborative Initiative of the Year category.
Would you like to write for the iED? As part of iED individual and organisation membership, ALL members have the opportunity to publish articles on our website. We are now seeking ideas for contributions from members, including those in our Early Career Network. These can be around any aspect of economic development, insights on work you are undertaking and project successes you would like to share, or any viewpoint you would like to express. If you have an article proposal please contact: Jac Jordan, Institute of Economic Development PR consultant, Tel: 01706 214 340/ 07887 416 182, email: jac@vivapr.co.uk
