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How to Show Your Smarts: A Proven Approach to Expertise Marketing
If you’re operating in a knowledge-based industry, you’re in the business of selling expertise. Unfortunately, many organizations in these expert-rich sectors take an ad-hoc approach to planning and executing their expertise marketing initiatives. As a result, they often lack coordination across departments and fail to leverage valuable assets such as talent, content, technology and media channels. By following some simple rules, you will see significantly better results. It Starts with A Conversation First we need to talk about cross-team collaboration. Expertise marketing is a team sport, so it’s vital that your star players are ready. Throughout your organization, there are a broad range of people who are eager to support this type of initiative.Don’t focus too much on roles or seniority levels. At this stage, it’s about having candid discussions with the people around you and then expanding the conversation. You could start by discussing the value of expertise with stakeholders in your organization and sharing how it would help you meet your targets. Or you could reach out to department leads and team managers to get their insights and generate ideas. Most importantly, you need to get to know people outside of your immediate circle and discover the hidden talent within your organization. Sometimes the best results come from surprising places. The ExpertFile Approach As we go through the key elements of an expertise marketing program, you might find that you’re already following some of our best practices. However, when we start working with our clients, we often find that their expert content is disconnected and scattered across various teams and channels. If this sounds like you, that’s ok – you just need a bit of help putting the pieces together. Below, we’ve provided an overview of our proven approach and its alignment with the 5 key elements of expertise marketing: Strategy & Talent: The first step is to assess your expertise bench strength in your organization at various levels. Using a range of evaluation tools and techniques, we set out to identify any hidden expertise in your organization and establish what each expert can contribute. By engaging experts to share their expertise early on, we can define a strategy and open up doors for a range of high-quality content. Storytelling: Now, we need to establish your strengths and how we can best position your experts for your target audiences. Not only do we want to create stories that highlight your core offering, but we also need to showcase your experts in the context of breaking news and emerging issues. This ensures that you are always putting out timely and relevant content for high-value audiences like journalists, conference organizers and other media professionals. Digital Experience: Once you know which topics are best for your organization, we need to boost audience engagement with rich online experiences. We audit any existing channels and develop comprehensive “content footprints” for your experts. These footprints map out the future state of your expert content – such as new webpages, speakers’ bureaus, improved expert profiles, multi-media and/or social content assets. Search & Discovery: All the planning in the world won’t help you if your content isn’t visible. At this stage, we look to optimize your channels and maximize your reach with new and existing audiences. By publishing your expert content in searchable formats, we can make your organization more approachable and discoverable across your owned channels, search engines, social networks and newsroom platforms. Measurement: To show momentum it’s essential that we measure and track important content metrics to ensure the expertise marketing program is meeting expectations. We focus on key metrics such as expert content contributions, visitor engagement, and direct expert inquiries. And because we consider this from the onset of a project, we’re able to accurately report on your return on investment (ROI).
Kelley professor’s M-Score model remains most viable means of predicting corporate fraud
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Enhanced oversight over the auditing profession and firms’ financial reporting has led to a proliferation of models to predict financial statement fraud. But one of the first forensic models, the M-Score, devised by an Indiana University Kelley School of Business professor in the late 90s, remains accurate and is the most economically viable for investors to use, according to a forthcoming paper in The Accounting Review — the official journal of the American Accounting Association. The article, “The Costs of Fraud Prediction Errors,” co-authored by M. Daniel Beneish, professor of accounting and the Alva L. Prickett Chair at Kelley, compares seven fraud prediction models with a cost-based measure that nets the benefits of correctly anticipating instances of fraud against the costs borne by incorrectly identifying non-fraud firms as fraudulent. Even though newer fraud models early doubled the success rate of M-Score, which Beneish developed, they did so at the cost of a much larger number of false positives. As a result, the other models are not used in practice by auditors because they are too costly to implement as all flagged firms must be carefully investigated. “I have long known from my experience consulting with Arthur Andersen — for whom my model detected Enron before the debacle — and other public accounting firms, that litigation concerns relating to false positives — firms incorrectly flagged as having fraudulent financial statements — created an unwillingness by auditors’ general counsel to use fraud prediction models in practice,” Beneish said. “My efforts back then to improve the M-Score in the context of auditing failed because I could not increase the model’s success rate without increasing the number of false positives. It seems that the new models cannot either,” he added. Interestingly, as early as 2017 the M-Score flagged Kangmei Pharmaceutical, a Chinese publicly traded company that was involved in financial reporting fraud between 2016 and 2018. Like the Enron scandal in the U.S., the Kangmei Pharmaceutical scandal helped trigger new regulation in China that increased regulatory penalties for financial fraud (effective March 2020) and last November became China’s first successful class-action lawsuit involving corporate fraud. Its chairman was sentenced to 12 years in prison. “The main purpose of our paper is to provide evidence on the costs and benefits of using fraud prediction models, and to show whether using these models is economically viable for auditors, investors and regulators,” Beneish said. “This is important because the traditional measures commonly used in recent research to justify new models are misleading about model performance in fraud samples as the proportion of fraud firms in the population is very small, and as they typically assume that the cost of a false positive and false negatives (missed detections) are equal.” For example, assume that among 10,000 publicly traded firms, there are about 60 fraud firms and 9,940 firms without misreporting. The newer models detected 42 frauds (70% of the total frauds), and incorrectly flagged 3,976 firms (40% of the non-frauds). The latter is too large a number for most decision makers to investigate. “Our evidence that a cost-based assessment of models is preferable to traditional model comparison measures (e.g., area under the curve), should become even more important as efforts by future researchers in the areas of data mining and machine learning intensify,” Beneish said. Patrick Vorst of Maastricht University, assistant professor in financial accounting and accounting & information management, co-authored the paper with Beneish.
The 23rd annual Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2021/2022 report measures entrepreneurial activity across 47 high, medium and low-income economies Data is gathered via a survey of at least 2,000 respondents in each country Mark Hart, professor of small business and entrepreneurship at Aston Business School, leads the GEM UK team. The 23rd annual Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2021/2022 report, unveiled at the Dubai Expo, measures entrepreneurial activity across 47 high, medium and low-income economies. Mark Hart, professor of small business and entrepreneurship at Aston Business School, leads the GEM UK team. Data is gathered via a survey of at least 2,000 respondents in each country who answer questions on their entrepreneurial activity, attitudes to enterprise and view of their local entrepreneurial eco-system. The survey found that: 51% believed they had the skills and knowledge to start their own business 50% knew someone who has started a new business 61% of respondents believed there were good opportunities to start a business in their area, but 52% of these people cited fear of failure as a reason for not starting a new business in the next three years. The UK was ranked 40th in ‘entrepreneurial intentions’, 32nd in ‘personally having the skills and knowledge’ and 7th in ‘fear of failure’. Other survey responses in the UK found that, of those respondents who were actively involved in starting or running a new business, 30% believed the COVID-19 pandemic had led to a decrease in household income. But while more than a third (36%) of respondents thought starting a business was more difficult than a year ago, 63% were using technology to sell more products and services and 57% were pursuing new opportunities as a result of the pandemic – which was the joint 6th-highest of the 47 countries. Social responsibility also featured fairly high in entrepreneurs’ minds with 53% starting a business ‘to make a difference’, but was third to building ‘great wealth’ and ‘to earn a living’. Dr Sreevas Sahasranamam, senior lecturer in entrepreneurship and innovation at the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, and one of eight authors of the GEM Global Report, said: “It is heartening to see that more than 50% of entrepreneurs in the UK are pursuing new opportunities due to the pandemic and more than 60% are using more digital technologies to sell products and services, indicating flexibility and adaptability. “On Entrepreneurial Framework Conditions, however, the UK is performing poorly compared to other developed economies on Government Entrepreneurial Programs and Entrepreneurial Education in School. “Amongst the 17 high-income countries (GDP per capita greater than $40,000) in our sample, UK has an average score (5.1) for its Entrepreneurial Finance conditions, while its score for Ease of Access to Entrepreneurial Finance (4.4) is the lowest amongst this group. Thus, finance remains a key challenge to entrepreneurial activity in the UK. “Entrepreneurship centres like Strathclyde’s Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship can help in this regard by offering entrepreneurship education and support for students, staff start-ups and growth-oriented ventures, through initiatives like Strathclyde Inspire and our Growth Advantage Programme.” Mark Hart, professor of small business and entrepreneurship at Aston Business School and leader of the GEM UK team said: “Entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviours will be critical for the recovery after the pandemic as they were after the Great Financial Crisis over a decade ago. “The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) project provides policymakers in the UK with unique data to understand the ability of local and regional economies to develop financial independence and create future growth. “The recent UK Government White Paper on Levelling Up was somewhat disappointing in that respect as it ignored this key dimension of economic development across the regions and home nations of the UK”. Globally, the GEM report found that in 15 out of these 47 economies, more than half of those starting or running a new business agreed that the pandemic had led to new business opportunities. In 2020, this had been the case for just nine out of 46 economies. In 2021, more than 50% of entrepreneurs agreed that starting a business had become more difficult in 18 of 47 economies. In 2020, almost twice as many (33 out of 46 economies) had 50% or more of their would-be entrepreneurs agreeing that this was the case. The Dominican Republic had the highest levels of early-stage entrepreneurial activity while Poland had the lowest. The Scotland GEM Report 2020 published in September last year by Strathclyde researchers estimated that 7.3% of the Scottish population – 247,000 adults – were actively engaged in setting up a business or already running an enterprise established in the last three-and-a-half years, including 60,000 young people in Scotland, or 13% of 18-24 year-olds.
Podcast: Germany’s caution over Russian aggression ‘disappointing’ NATO
Russia’s threat to Ukraine has highlighted differences between east and west Germans over handling of Russia, and the country’s cautious foreign policy Aston University academic explains why German soldiers shooting at Russian counterparts would be seen as a “tremendous failure” New Chancellor Olaf Scholz faces massive challenges including how to handle Covid-19, “crumbling” infrastructure, and climate change targets. Germany without its stalwart former leader Angela Merkel faces a number of huge challenges – not least the threat of Russia invading Ukraine. While Germany wants to provide leadership within the European Union, its diplomatic stance over Russia is at odds with many other countries within NATO. Those are the views of Dr Ed Turner, a reader in politics at Aston University, who was interviewed in the latest episode of the 'Society matters' podcast series, presented by journalist Steve Dyson. The episode, subtitled 'What Germany's new government means for the UK, Europe and Russia', follows a political shift following the departure of Chancellor Angela Merkel last year after 16 years in charge, after the defeat of her Christian Democratic Party. Dr Turner said the immediate priority for new Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz was “undoubtedly the crisis in Ukraine and the positioning of large numbers of Russian troops on Ukraine’s border, and the real worry that Russia will invade”. He said Germany wants the issue addressed, “but is doing so in a way that is really very cautious and is disappointing to many of Germany’s allies”. Dr Turner, who is also co-director of the Aston Centre for Europe, said Germany’s “very different approach” was reflective of its history with Russia. He explained: “There is a strong sense that Germany owes a significant debt, has a particular responsibility towards Russia for the losses incurred in World War One and, particularly, in World War Two. “The perception is that German troops once again firing at Russian soldiers would be a tremendous failure. Germany also places a strong emphasis on diplomacy as a way of engaging in foreign relations rather than hard military interventions.” There were also “economic angles”, he added, with Germany needing Russian energy at a time when it was committed to phasing out coal and nuclear power. Dr Turner, whose fascination with Germany began when he cycled through the country as a teenager, said a “carrot and stick” balance was dividing the country, with 68 per cent of west Germans but only 34 per cent of east Germans last year supporting EU sanctions against Russia. This reflected “really big disparities” more than 30 years after German reunification, with 60 per cent of east Germans feeling they are treated as second class citizens. Dr Turner said post-Merkel Germany faced big challenges including handling Covid-19, large parts of German infrastructure “really crumbling” with a big backlog of investment needed, and a pledge to move faster towards net zero emissions. But he added that UK-German relations in the wake of Brexit were not on the list of big things. “Good relations between the UK and Germany will depend on the nature of the UK’s relations with the European Union,” he said. “If the UK is at loggerheads with the European Union, in particular if there was a worsening of the situation in relation to the Northern Ireland protocol, then relations with Germany would get worse.” But Dr Turner said there was “huge affection” for the UK in Germany. “Germans are willing to disentangle the UK from Brexit and to say ‘we want to move on and don’t think badly of you’. I really want to see bridge-building between the two countries over the coming years.” Dr Turner said Germany remained “nervous” of the advance of the far right, especially if numbers of refugees coming to Germany were to grow. He said Angela Merkel would be remembered for Germany’s “humane response” to the 2015 refugee crisis, but others were “much more critical” over her policy. This, he added, led to German society becoming divided and the far right gaining ground. But Dr Turner acknowledged Mrs Merkel as a “remarkable leader who really broke the mould” as the first woman Chancellor and first from the east. In contrast, her successor is seen as a “steady hand on the tiller” as he heads a “traffic light coalition” of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals. Episode 6 in series 2 of the ‘Society matters’ podcast and all previous episodes can be found HERE.
The Nesta study looked at innovation as applied to industrial policy and focussed on migrant micro-enterprises in Birmingham Experts found while there is some face-to-face business support in Birmingham, the majority of it is provided online and in English The Community Organising for Inclusive Industrial Policy study was conducted by Citizens UK Birmingham and the Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME) at Aston Business School. A new report by Aston University and Citizens UK Birmingham has found the UK Government must do more to include micro-enterprises with business support. The Community Organising for Inclusive Industrial Policy study, which was conducted by Citizens UK Birmingham and the Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME) at Aston Business School for Nesta, concluded micro-enterprises in principle can take advantage of business support that is available in Birmingham, but in practice there are several limitations. Experts found while there is some face-to-face business support in Birmingham, the majority of it is provided online with most of the various government and other websites which provide extensive business support information largely in English, and not directly accessible to those who have inadequate English language skills or lack a good level of digital skills. In Birmingham, the business leaders group successfully bid for a local authority contract to create public health videos in community languages, featuring community members in familiar locations as a way of making the content more relatable to the target audience. Professor Monder Ram, director of Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME) at Aston Business School, said: “It is wonderful to see CREME and Citizen UK’s highly impactful initiative on migrant business support receive this recognition from NESTA as an exemplar of ‘grassroots’ social innovation. “Our collaboration demonstrates the value of communities working together to support businesses and tackle common challenges.” You can read the full report HERE.
Podcast: Academics behind new course say ‘team leaders are the future’
Inspirational Team Coaching course aims to develop leaders for the 21st century New course needed because occasional team-building activities and ‘away days’ are not enough for the needs of today Inspirational Team Coaching will be split into three modules with launch due this autumn. Top business academics at Aston University are devising a new team coaching course with the aim of ‘upskilling’ the entrepreneurs of tomorrow. The Inspirational Team Coaching course, to be launched this autumn, will lead to a Postgraduate Certificate from the Centre for Innovation in Enterprise Education at Aston Business School. It has been developed by senior lecturer Dr Uwe Napiersky and senior teaching fellow Dr Elinor Vettraino, who discussed their plans in the latest episode in the ‘Aston means business' podcast series, presented by journalist Steve Dyson. Dr Napiersky, who spent more than 20 years in international consultancy, explained that his motto for team coaching was “team excellence doesn’t come by itself”. He said: “Focused team coaching makes the difference between muddling through or performing as one – the team as a whole is the key, not the different egos. We all know the old ‘sum of the parts’ sentence which is more important than ever.” Dr Napiersky said the new course helped their learners in areas such as collective team objectives and processes, and improved team dynamics. He said coaching was a “billion-dollar” industry and team coaching was one of the “newest kids in town. He added: “One of my slogans is ‘innovation is a team effort’. Many leaders still believe in this model of the 20th century, but it’s more about the 21st century, leadership more in a team direction.” His colleague Dr Vettraino, who incorporates team coaching into her consultancy work, said: “Organisations make an assumption that people know how to work together in teams and actually that’s often not the case.” She said that while employers tend to have team building activities, “they don’t address the day-to-day challenges and benefits of working in teams the way a coaching process can.” Dr Vettraino explained that team coaching can lead to increased motivation for staff, enabling innovation and creativity to grow, along with collaboration – which she said was “a key to surviving in industry nowadays”. She added: “Being supported by a team coach adds tremendous benefit to an organisation.” The course, to be delivered by experienced coaches and team leaders, is divided into three modules, with the first on ‘foundational knowledge and essentials’. Dr Napiersky said: “We go into team learning, we go into the area of innovating teams, and we will definitely look into real world team challenges our students will have.” The second module is focused on ‘Tasks and Mindset’. Dr Vettraino said its purpose was to take some of the foundational knowledge and put it into practice, by “looking at developing participants’ innovation, creativity, problem-solving and risk-taking capacity and mindset”. She added: “It’s going to enable the participants to really dig into the playfulness and creativity of their own coaching practice that will enable them to find new and different ways of working with teams.” The third and final module looks at developing ‘Professional Practice’. “It’s really in the third unit that participants start their own swimming and with their own swimming style,” explained Dr Napiersky. The understanding goes from unprepared to clear for themselves, from singular to systemic, from messy to focused or muddling through to structured.” Dr Vettraino chipped in: “There’s a lot of opportunity here to develop really rich projects in relation to their coaching practice. What we want them to do is hone their skills and capacity for inspirational team coaching with real clients they are working with so they can develop a very rich understanding of putting the first year module’s learning into practice.” To prepare students for the real world, Dr Napiersky said: “There’s a lot for internal coaches to do – getting teams clearer, getting them working, and helping them to build up more capacity, and applying the skills they will learn on this course.” Dr Vettraino said: “This skill base will enable people who are currently practising, perhaps as consultant coaches of their own practice, to develop something that adds to their toolkit. They can take it into their own practice and potentially even coaching other organisations.” To find out more about the programme email e.vettraino@aston.ac.uk or u.napiersky@aston.ac.uk. ▪ Episode 5 in series 4 of ‘Aston means business’ podcast can be found HERE.
Aston University announced as an Official University for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games
Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games will be held between 28 July and 8 August Aston University will provide ophthalmic expertise to the polyclinics The University is proud to support the mission of Birmingham 2022 to be the first Games to create a carbon neutral legacy Students have been set a challenge to develop ideas for creating a sustainable Games. Aston University has been unveiled as an Official University to the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, which will take place between 28 July and 8 August this year. The University’s School of Optometry will be loaning ophthalmic equipment and providing eye care expertise, supported by a network of qualified optometrist volunteers, for three polyclinics which will form the primary healthcare facilities for athletes and team officials requiring medical assessment and treatment throughout the Games period. Professor Leon Davies, professor of optometry and physiological optics at Aston University, said: “It is our aim to advance eye health in our region and society through innovative and clinically relevant education, research, and community engagement. I am looking forward to overseeing the Games’ eye care clinics throughout Birmingham 2022. “In addition to providing ophthalmic equipment during the Games, we have also brought together a cohort of volunteer optometrists, dispensing opticians and ophthalmologists from across the UK.” Dr Pam Venning, head of medical services at Birmingham 2022, said: “We are delighted to have Aston University on board as an Official University. Its School of Optometry is well-known for its innovation and world-leading education. “Birmingham 2022 wouldn’t be possible without teams of volunteers, and we are looking forward to working with the optometrists, opticians and ophthalmologists assembled by the University to support the athletes and officials attending the Games.” The University will also be supporting Birmingham 2022 in its aim to be the first Games to create a carbon neutral legacy by providing parking and hosting temporary electric vehicle charging facilities for its fleet, as well as other spaces on campus for its organising team. The director of Aston University’s Energy and Bioproducts Research Institute, Professor Patricia Thornley, said: “It is important that such a flagship event in Birmingham embodies the very best in sustainable practices, and we are working hard to support that.” Nicola Turner MBE, director of legacy and Jess Fidler, head of sustainability for Birmingham 2022 spoke to students in a special event in November setting out the work being done to create a legacy for the region, including the ambition to create a carbon neutral legacy. Birmingham 2022 has also provided this year’s business challenge for postgraduate business and management students at Aston Business School, who have been tasked with developing ideas for how the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games can create a lasting sustainability legacy for the city. The best ideas from the challenge will be reviewed by the Birmingham 2022 team and the West Midlands Combined Authority, who are taking the lead on a sustainability legacy. Saskia Loer Hansen, Interim Vice-Chancellor of Aston University, said: “At Aston University, we take an holistic approach that embeds sustainability through all our external activities at local, national and international level. “We are proud to support the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games in its aim to be the first Games to create a carbon neutral legacy.” Commonwealth Games Federation CEO, Katie Sadleir, said: “We are delighted to welcome Aston University as an Official University to the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. “The University will provide vital ophthalmic expertise and equipment for athletes and team officials requiring ophthalmic assessment and treatment throughout the Games. “This is a critical service and with Aston University, we have a fantastic partner to deliver this.”
Aston University programme aimed at helping diverse businesses hailed a success
The Diverse Supply Chains ERDF programme assists diverse and minority-owned businesses to enter the supply chains of major organisations Diverse businesses are those owned and managed by women, people with limiting disabilities, people who are LGBT+, ethnic minorities and young entrepreneurs They have also had the opportunity to attend a workshop programme with access to funding. An Aston University programme aimed at helping diverse businesses has been hailed a success by the companies taking part. The Diverse Supply Chains programme supports local diverse1 businesses to enter the supply chains of major organisations through a specialised workshop programme and facilitates relationships between the businesses and large private and public sector corporate contractors. It also provides grants worth up to £2500 (match funding). The programme is being delivered in collaboration with Balfour Beatty Vinci, High Speed 2, Birmingham City Council, NatWest, The OM Group and Bournville Village Trust. To date, 98 businesses have been supported via two workshop programmes, out of which 19 have received grants of £2500. Furthermore, the programme has announced that three businesses have won a total of six bids since completing the programme. Professor Nick Theodorakopoulos, Programme Director, said: “I am delighted to see that the support we’ve been delivering to local diverse businesses has been really well received. Particularly the opportunity given to the SMEs to attend an innovative workshop programme with key industry partners; with participating businesses also having access to some funding in order to support their business tendering/supply chain activities.” Kavita Jeerh, ERDF Programme Manager at Aston Business School, said: “I am really pleased with how the programme has progressed so far. Considering we were due to launch the programme in April 2020, due to lockdown we were forced to re-assess the programme delivery and make key components of it accessible online. “This was challenging, but I am pleased to see that the two workshop programmes we have already delivered have met with remarkable success. “We are now half-way through delivering the final cohort.” Kamaljit Suman, co-founder of Art of the Heart CIC, commented: “If we hadn’t have done the Diverse Supply Chains course we would’ve gone down as a business - there’s not much doubt in my mind that that’s the case. “Since then, we have won our first contract with Birmingham City Council.”
What the Basque Country tells us about 'levelling up' | Aston Angle
What the Basque Country tells us about using local governance to level up By Dr Caroline Gray Lecturer in Politics and International Relations School of Social Science and Humanities January 2022 In a recent interview on his vision of ‘levelling up’, Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, cited the Basque Country as one example of where ‘things have been done well’. The Basque Country, an industrial region of northern Spain with a population of just over two million, is widely admired for having undergone a remarkable, industry-focused economic transformation since it was hit by the decline of heavy industry in the 1980s. It is now one of the leading regions in Europe not only in terms of GDP per capita, but also in having a low percentage of population at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Within Spain itself, critics usually attribute this to the way the Basque fiscal autonomy model works, enabling the region to keep more of its own wealth to itself than other similarly prosperous regions in Spain – a form of internal ‘levelling up’ at the expense of other regions. This, however, is not the only contributing factor to the Basque Country’s economic transformation. Effective governance has also played a key role. What takeaways from the Basque experience might be relevant to levelling up in the UK and the devolution framework needed to facilitate it? Through my research on the Basque governance systems, I’ve discovered that some of the most valuable lessons relate to how multi-level governance works within the Basque region itself and how that contributes to economic and social transformation. Devolution does not stop with the powers devolved to regional governments or authorities; the relationship between different stakeholders and layers of governance within a region or locality is equally important. If the UK government wants to learn from what the Basque Country has done well, it should consider the following: 1. Devolution beyond metropolitan areas needs to be flexible and adaptable to place-based specifics In his July 2021 Levelling Up speech, Boris Johnson announced that levelling up would involve extending devolution beyond cities with new deals for the counties. The government must stick to the commitment it made then to shape new devolution deals with local input, avoiding one-size-fits-all approaches. The Basque Country provides valuable evidence for why it’s beneficial to shape governance approaches to the economic geography of an area. As one of Spain’s 17 regions called ‘autonomous communities’, the Basque Country is, in turn, divided into provinces (Araba-Álava, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa) and municipalities. Counties, which don’t have an administrative body, but which do house county development agencies, make up an additional level between the provinces and municipalities. The economic activity of two of the provinces (Araba-Álava and Bizkaia) is typical of metropolitan areas in that it is centred heavily on their capital cities (Vitoria and Bilbao, respectively), where the provincial councils are based. However, in the third, Gipuzkoa, economic activity is more distributed across different hubs in the province. As a result, in Gipuzkoa, the county development agencies, created in the late 1980s, have acquired a particularly important role, as interviewees from the Basque Institute of Competitiveness explained to me. The counties map particularly well onto the different industrial areas in the province, thanks to the fact that they were designed with the bottom-up input of municipal leaders working together with the provincial council. The county development agencies have, in turn, become a key channel via which the provincial council in Gipuzkoa can reach SMEs more easily, as they are closer to the firms. Such local networks are particularly important in non-metropolitan areas where economic activity can be more dispersed. This is why the UK government must make sure any new devolution framework it designs is flexible enough to allow for local input and adaptations to place-based considerations. 2. Bottom-up, collaborative dynamics are essential to the design and implementation of placed-based strategies Basque economic development has undoubtedly benefitted from the fact that the regional government draws upon input from different levels of administration and a range of other public and private stakeholders in the region when designing its industrial policies. Experiments in collaborative governance have become increasingly innovative over the years, not only at regional but also provincial and local level, designed to reach beyond the largest firms and to engage wider society. The county development agencies in Gipuzkoa, for example, used to provide services to SMEs in an essentially one-way direction – for example, advising them on how to apply policy – but have since evolved more into facilitators of networks for cooperation and mutual learning among public and private actors at county level. This not only facilitates more efficient implementation of regional policies, but also channels local feedback upwards into the policy-making process, adding value. Collaboration among different tiers of governance and different areas, rather than competition, has been the goal of such approaches. Therefore, the UK government needs to reconsider the increasingly competitive dimension of current devolution arrangements. Having areas compete against one another for centrally controlled, often short-term pots of money doesn’t facilitate the formation of robust, collaborative partnerships that could ultimately add value and increase efficiency. Finally, institutional stability is important. From the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) to the Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), which are now under review, there has been frequent chopping and changing in the institutions and policies meant to tackle the UK’s place-based inequalities in recent decades. The Basque Country shows what can be achieved with a more stable, longer-term institutional and policy framework and vision. If it is to have a meaningful impact in tackling inequalities, the Levelling Up White Paper must provide the basis for a longer-term devolution framework that goes well beyond the current government term, with a clear allocation of resources and responsibility.
Tony Cocker is senior independent director at SSE plc and chair of Infinis Energy Management He was CEO and chair of E.ON UK from 2011 to 2017, and was also chair and non-executive director at various organisations, including Affinity Water Ltd, EIC, and the Energy & Utilities Industrial Partnership Professor Cocker will work within Aston University’s College of Business and Social Sciences focussing on energy operations, innovations and sustainability. Independent Director at SSE and Infinis and former CEO of E.ON UK has joined Aston University as a Visiting Professor within the College of Business and Social Sciences. Tony Cocker will work closely with the director of the Centre for Circular Economy and Advanced Sustainability (CEAS), Dr Luciano Batista, and the director of the Energy and Bioproducts Research Institute (EBRI), Professor Patricia Thornley, to develop connections between Aston University and the energy industry over the next three years. In the next 12 months, Tony will engage with undergraduate and postgraduate students across Aston Business School and with researchers at CEAS and EBRI. He will support the development the CEAS Advisory Board, give programme specific and public talks, and participate in networking events that will appeal to a wide range of key stakeholders such as students, academics, industry, and government partners across Aston University. The potential to support Aston student placements opportunities and mentoring for students will also feature as part of Tony’s engagement. Professor Cocker will also work with colleagues at Aston Business School and EBRI to expand research connections in common areas of interest associated with energy innovations, business strategies and sustainability. Professor Cocker said: “I am excited and motivated to join Aston University as a visiting professor. I am looking forward to supporting the teaching and research agenda of the university, capitalising on the knowledge and industry connections I have built over the years in the energy sector and related industries.” Dr Luciano Batista, head of CEAS at Aston Business School, said: “I am looking forward to working with Tony. His professional experience and vast industrial connections will add considerable value to the teaching activities and research collaborations we develop across key programmes and research projects in the business school. It is a great privilege to have an experienced business leader in the faculty team at Aston Business School. This well-deserved appointment recognises the notable contribution Tony has made, and continues to make, to the industry over the years.” Professor Patricia Thornley, director of the Energy and Bioproducts Research Institute (EBRI), said: “Tony brings a wealth of knowledge and experience which will be really valuable to Aston University. We already have a long list of areas where we will be working together so that our students can benefit from his expertise and I look forward to working with him to expand the relevance of our research and engagement, particularly in energy”.