Delivering a masterclass on innovation & its role in economies

Knowledge and ideas are centrepieces of the UK’s national Industrial Strategy, produced in 2017. As such, they are important underpinnings of the logic and content of the Local Industrial Strategies, being developed by Local Enterprise Partnerships.

Against this background, Steer Economic Development was commissioned in late 2019 by Cumbria LEP to design, develop, and deliver a masterclass on innovation, and its role in successful 21st century economies. Lasting a full day, and delivered by Simon Pringle, the masterclass took circa 35 attendees through a structured programme of learning, starting with a decomposition of the key determinants of economic success (demographics, economic activity, sectoral mix, and productivity), then onto the established models for understanding innovation (clustering, agglomeration, open/closed innovation, supply chains, etc), and finally an exposition of the drivers of ongoing and future innovation (i.e. convergence in technology/commercial markets, and technology-enabled disruption).

The second half of the masterclass was given over to developing an Innovation Action Plan for Cumbria, informed by the proceeding material, and how this might be progressed by a new Innovation Task Group, sitting under the LEP’s main board.

Across the day, the workshop was designed to be highly interactive, with regular Q&A throughout. Wherever possible, modules were geared to examples and case studies, with this material focused on the particular Cumbria-facing interests of workshop attendees.