Organisation Membership: Data-Driven Innovation

Data-Driven Innovation (DDI) is a strategic partnership led by the University of Edinburgh with Heriot-Watt University, working across six local authorities within the £1.3 billion Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal. DDI brings together academia, industry and the public sector to grow the data economy, support businesses and deliver economic impact across the region.

For DDI’s Head of Programme Delivery, John Scott, joining the Institute of Economic Development (iED) was driven by a clear strategic need.

“The DDI programme is unlike a typical university department,” he explained. “We don’t do research, and we don’t teach – we support economic development. We are an economic development team. Our decision to become an Organisation Member of the iED was easy – the evolving national economic development landscape is a critical issue. We have got well-established devolved arrangements here in Scotland, and there was lots of activity and momentum around regional devolution arrangements in England, championed by Manchester and others. So, my motivation was quite simple. It was to say, ‘let’s get plugged in a bit more to colleagues down south’. Let’s try to understand more about their direction of travel and make sure we’re reasonably informed regarding what the potential downstream implications might be for us.”

For an organisation focused on economic development, understanding how policy and governance are evolving across the UK is essential. Membership of the iED provides access to a network of practitioners facing many of the same challenges, creating opportunities to learn from different places and perspectives.

While DDI already works closely with City Deal teams and partners across other UK cities, John sees iED membership as a way to build relationships beyond existing networks.

“We’ve got this ready-made network that we should be plugging into so we can understand more about what’s going on, codify some of that learning, build relationships and partnerships that go beyond our usual remit,” he said. “We’ve had conversations with colleagues in Cardiff about what devolved arrangements look like in the context of capital cities. If we are looking from the major city regions in the devolved nations – Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff or Belfast – it may feel as though we’re getting to a point of competitive disadvantage. The proliferation of major city regions across the UK might be viewed as competing with each other to attract investment and skills, but they can work with each other to ensure that is not the case.”

Reflecting on the DDI’s membership, John believes there is even greater potential to make use of the network: “We can use it more systematically to extend those relationships. We’d be able to speak to colleagues who are leading the way on particular developments and ask, ‘What’s going on here? What does this mean? What’s the context?’ That allows us to better explore key developments and understanding the implications.”

DDI has already featured in two major iED publications: How Universities Can Help Drive Local and Regional Economies and Delivering Good Growth, and in 2025, won the iED’s prestigious Collaborative Initiative of the Year award.

“We’ve got a fantastic story up here and iED membership gives us the opportunity to tell it more broadly,” John shared. “Through the DDI programme we originally said we’d support early-stage companies that would raise around £50 million over ten years. We are currently sitting at around £560 million. There’s a really active network of emerging companies, hopefully moving into a very successful scale-up phase.”

Looking beyond DDI, John believes universities have an increasingly important role to play in supporting their local economies. “Higher education institutions must think seriously about how they engage and maximise impact in their communities,” John commented. “Otherwise, they risk becoming abstract institutions that exist within a region rather than serve the region. However, while measures such as GVA demonstrate economic contribution, they are only part of the story. My team supported an independent economic appraisal which concluded that the University’s annual GVA contribution was around £7 billion. That’s useful evidence, but if you’re talking to somebody on Easter Road in Edinburgh, that number may mean very little.”

Instead, universities need to demonstrate tangible local impact, John continued: “When I was growing up in Edinburgh, the University of Edinburgh felt like a spaceship hovering above the city. I didn’t see it as being for people like me. That has changed hugely. The University is continually looking for ways to increase its value and contribution to the local communities around it.”

For John, organisations such as the iED play an important role in helping universities connect national industrial strategy with local economic development, ensuring institutions can translate policy into meaningful action for the places they serve,

“Universities naturally see themselves as research-led institutions, but some of these opportunities are closer to market,” he continued. “If the iED can help universities understand how national policy and industrial strategy translate into local economic development opportunities – and how that connects to what they’re already doing – then you are effectively building an economic development pathway that’s meaningful to the higher education sector.”

As DDI continues to develop its relationship with the iED, John sees significant opportunities ahead – from expanding professional networks and sharing innovation to raising the profile of Scotland’s economic development successes across the UK.

Case study developed: July 2026