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University of York
University of York
The University of York has been a member of the IED since March 2020. Through its organisational membership, the University has an unlimited number of individual memberships for qualifying staff, including the Economic Development team headed up by Mark Gunthorpe.
In his own role, Mark is responsible for establishing economic development projects and programmes, strategic networking with LEPs, councils and funding organisations, and contract management of project activity, including liaison with funders. Mark explained why the University took the decision to join the IED.
“A key principle of the University strategy is it is a University for Public Good,” he said. “To fulfil this role we work with a wide variety of local stakeholders, with local authorities being key strategic partners. IED membership links us to a wide network of economic professionals and helps us to both better understand, and input into, place-based strategies and issues. The membership has been invaluable in helping give us an insight into issues from a non-HE perspective, as well as opportunities to communicate the HE perspective to non-HE partners.”
The University has attended and participated in both CPD training and events. In April 2022, the University’s Pro Vice-Chancellor for Partnerships and Engagement Professor Kiran Trehan chaired an IED webinar on Levelling Up: How can universities get involved in economic development, skills and innovation under a local devolution model? She was previously a panel member on another webinar: How can economic development professionals work most effectively with Higher Education Institutions to drive growth? Professor Trehan has also contributed several thought leadership articles.
“The fact the University has actively engaged with the IED at several management and officer levels has been most pleasing,” Mark said. “We have benefitted from webinars that have helped us to keep up to speed with many place-based developments and make partnership links with other organisations. Other webinars have helped enable us to keep up to date with regional developments (e.g. Levelling Up). The CPD courses have been useful, particularly in relation to the Government's Green Book methodology, the understanding of which is becoming increasingly important since Brexit.”
Mark added: “The change that allows more individuals to benefit from the organisational membership is very welcome. We have already added several other staff members to our membership, meaning a wider range of University staff can benefit from exposure to the place-based partnership issues, as well as CPD training. More HE-related discussions will be beneficial, especially around the role of innovation to drive economic growth, and we look forward to supporting these further with the IED.”
Case study developed: May 2022