Developing a strategy for economic resilience in the West Midlands Combined Authority: The role of skills and industrial structure.

The year 2008 has seen economies around the world facing one of the worst economic crises in history. The recession's effects included a significant loss of income and employment which led to several social ills such as crime, health and wellbeing deterioration etc. However, the crisis did not impact all places with the same severity. The fellow's doctoral research examined the impact of the 2008 recession across Local Authority Districts in Great Britain during 2008-2014 in order to identify why some places have performed better than others in mitigating the negative effects of the crisis. This ability to face the recession effects is termed economic resilience.

Using quantitative econometric methods a number of factors affecting local economic resilience have been identified. In particular, the results indicate that the share of younger aged population and degree level qualification holders has mitigated the impact of the crisis in different places. The policy implications suggest that there is value at the local level in a greater focus on skills as well as the inclusion of resilience as a core element of place-based policies. Simultaneously, the study has left unanswered questions over the effects of geography and the local industrial structure in economic resilience.

The fellowship aims to address these questions and deliver two strategy documents that will focus on the development of skills and a local industrial strategy to explicitly promote and enhance economic resilience. The documents will be informed by the fellow's doctoral thesis as well as additional new research. They will also involve the formation of a stakeholder group consisted of key local actors and policymakers to co-create these strategy documents. The engagement of this group at an early stage in this process will assist the dissemination and impact of the outputs on the formulation of policy in the region.

Overall, the planned programme of activities includes holding two stakeholder events which will lead to two strategy documents. The dissemination of these documents will involve two launch events as well as a series of blog posts and policy briefings. The additional research to be conducted as part of the fellowship will lead to two academic publications. This carefully planned programme will allow the fellow to engage with both the academic and the policymaking (and wider) community, maximising the impact of the research and delivering better wellbeing outcomes for the region and beyond.