More and more, place-based multi-actor partnerships are being created to address local and regional needs. The need for local policy experimentation is clear. Decision-making authority is centralised in Westminster and there is only partial, ad hoc devolution of power to devolved, regional and local governance arenas. Current arrangements thus struggle to address the needs and challenges of local stakeholders and communities. They are also failing to address the defining national policy challenge of the 21st century, reaching net zero by 2050, and they are not contributing to inclusive and sustainable growth. Communities, local businesses, and policymakers realise this and are increasingly using multi-actor partnerships to bring together diverse stakeholders to address local needs.
To be effective multi-actor partnerships need to encourage participation, build confidence, and foster capability and capacity in place. Though this is well known, knowledge about what works in the creation and management of partnerships remains limited. This fellowship responds to this gap. Through applied interdisciplinary research – undertaken with LPIP regions – it will support actionable insight on the creation of effective multilevel governance structures in the UK.
Objectives
The project has two goals:
1. To examine the rise of multi-actor partnerships at multiple scales to understand how they help create, or hold back, the creation of more effective multilevel governance in the UK.
2. To understand what conditions and structures of these partnerships can provide practical insights into how to encourage participation, build confidence, and develop skills and capacity in local communities.
These goals will be achieved through three main research elements.
Desk-based document analysis will be used to collect publicly accessible information about each LPIP region, its central actors and partnerships as well as main regional issues of concern.
Interviews with regional stakeholders will be used to examine how and why LPIPs were created, and deepen insight on the relationships between central stakeholders them. They will also foster knowledge of each partnership’s architecture and processes.
Finally, workshops with regional stakeholders will be used to explore emergent insights on regional governance arrangements, the role of partnerships and local policy innovation.
The Team
Jake Barnes, BA Innovation Fellow
Outputs
Events
‘Assembling the impossible’ was a workshop delivered to Yorkshire Policy Innovation Partnership (YPIP) in Leeds in January 2024. It used art, performance and humour to provoke insight on the difference between organising to deliver transformative change and organising the delivering of transformative change in place.
