Reflections on Why Place Matters
In this guest Blogpost, Camelia Dijkstra and Chris Wyatt look back on the conversations and topics that arose during their recent highly successful webinar series, Place Matters.
Place occupies a large and important part of our thinking at Wolverhampton, as it constitutes a key pillar of our institutional Strategic Plan. So when discussions took place with ARMA to set up and lead a seminar series relating to Place, we were able to work with partners across sectors and co-create a series that has had considerable added value for those attending. When we started drafting the agenda for the series, the scope rapidly increased to cover policy and partnership, impact, and funding and our journey in developing the series was helped enormously by the support we had from ARMA, especially from Hamish and Eva, and the willingness of so many colleagues, working both for the university sector and for the Government, to give up so much of their valuable time to scope, write, rehearse, and deliver universally excellent presentations for the membership.
The seminar series consisted of three events delivered between February and May 2022: Place, Policy and Partnership Working; Place and the Impact Agenda; and Place and Funding. Throughout, it was important to address the fact that Place had been emerging as a central theme across policy and in the Academy, especially in regions within England. With this in mind, the added value of the series lay in: what Place in policy means for research professionals; how Place operates as a core concept at different levels of authority and Government Policy and administration, for example in the Levelling up Agenda, and what this means for encouraging innovation and partnership working; understanding how the concept of Place chimes with the Impact Agenda; and to provide insights on how different funding streams can be brought together to bear on Place, alongside the beneficial outcomes accruing to any given area of the UK.
The first of the seminars discussed three aspects: how policy had developed in the way that it had; the value of partnership and collaboration; and best practice examples of policy-relevant partnership working with regard to Place. The seminar added value by enabling an exploration of all dimensions of partnership working in Place, especially within the context of a movement towards an environment of resilience and recovery, something echoed across the country. Of particular importance were: definitions of Place and understanding the meaning of Place for various universities; discussion of what works best in partnership working, especially on change/improvement, collaboration and partnership, effective process, and the importance and scope of enhanced partnership; and discussion of the role of universities and Place as important aspects in and how they function locally, in engagement with community and other stakeholders, as well as in participating in sowing the seeds of recovery.
Our second seminar related to the interlink between Impact and Place. The Impact Agenda is crucial for engagement with policy, and Impact was considered in the seminar in a wider context including REF, innovation and research proposals. This seminar covered three main aspects: looking at Place and Impact in the round, addressing aspects like engagement and embedding Impact and Place into a funding application; Place best-practice regarding regional impact, notably Place-related research collaboration and engendering regional impact; and the third related to lessons learned from REF2021 on the impact of Place in impact case studies, a subject with particular resonance and relevance as we go into the next REF cycle and new Impact Case Studies are being seeded.
Seminar three was about Place and funding proposals. As the Place agenda permeates policy, there has been an increasing imperative to address it via funding mechanisms. Particularly important themes discussed included: how funders see Place and relevant funding streams; connecting research towards the needs and strengths of Place; and writing successful proposals on Place. The interface between the role of funders, considerations of Place in world leading research, and what works best has paid real dividends for ARMA colleagues attending.
The feedback from the series has been very positive and the added value of the contributions stems variously from the excellence of the speakers; the quality of the organisation, the interaction with the audience, and the variety of institutions represented. These were: CityREDI/WMREDI at the University of Birmingham, Durham University, EPSRC, the University of Kent, the University of Liverpool, Midlands Innovation, Newcastle University, the University of Reading, Research England, Staffordshire University, and the University of Wolverhampton. We thank all our speakers for all that they have done to make the seminar series such a success.
So what comes next? We are working with ARMA and colleagues across the sector on a series of follow-up activities online and interactive events to ensure that dialogue is strengthened and enhanced as the Levelling-up agenda continues to take priority and the landscape evolves. Watch this space, as in the next months a number of Place-related materials tools will be made available to ARMA members and all those involved in the series, ranging from briefings on the meaning of Place and its importance for the sector, a Place-HEI tool-kit, a best practice guide for funding applications and much more. We are also working with UPEN (the Universities Policies Engagement Network) where we are leading a subcommittee on regional and devolved policy matters. Place is a central part of the activities of the group. A range of Policy-focussed materials is being developed as part of the working of this group as well as wider with the UPEN members including the results from a multi- institutions survey. For more information on this, see https://www.upen.ac.uk/blogs/
We are looking forward to continuing to add value to the Place agenda for some time to come.
Dr Camelia Dijkstra is Head of Research Services and Dr Chris Wyatt, Research Impact and Policy Engagement Manager, at the University of Wolverhampton.
