Local growth and regeneration

External engagement is central in Keele’s Strategic Plan and Mission. Keele’s refreshed Knowledge Exchange Plan 2022-26 provides the framework for local growth and regeneration in the context of a landscape transformed through our Keele Deals agreed with local civic partners. These have provided growing opportunities for researchers and students to work with local SMEs and wider business communities to deliver innovation-led growth.

The Keele Deals

The 2017 New Keele Deal (now referred to as Keele Deal | Economy), the first and most ambitious Deal, supported a plan to deliver £70m of investment by Keele University, Staffordshire County Council, Stoke-on-Trent City Council, Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council, University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust, and the Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Local Enterprise Partnership to exploit the potential of Keele University’s world-leading research and facilities. Its aim was to tackle low productivity and improve business competitiveness in the region, deliver a significant number of higher value jobs for the next 20 years, contribute to improved health and healthcare, and grow a culture of innovation in the local business community. The Deal also committed to saving around 4,000 tonnes of CO2 per year and put our region at the heart of the UK’s transition to a lower carbon economy.

That Deal led to the creation of one of the largest University Local Growth and Regeneration Programmes nationally, achieving £70.6m in investment to date to support local growth. The subsequent thematic deals - Keele Deal Culture, Keele Deal Health, and Keele Deal Recovery included in their strategic priorities further support for local growth and regeneration.

Keele Deal | Culture (2018) included objectives to support creative entrepreneurship and SME growth, through incubation support, research-informed leadership development, student/graduate talent, and world-leading specialist expertise to help drive the innovation-led growth of the creative SME sector.

Keele Deal | Health (2019) built on strong clinical research relationships across the region, and UK leading strengths in primary care, public and patient engagement, musculoskeletal health and rehabilitation bioengineering. The Deal aimed to underpin the growth and development of the Bio/MedTech cluster on the Keele Science and Innovation Park, and build on a Staffordshire healthcare business network of over 150 members.

Following Keele’s immediate response to the impact of pandemic conditions on businesses (see Activity), Keele agreed Keele Deal | Recovery (launched early 2021) with civic partners, which reflected shared ambitions to ‘build back better’. As well as reviewing and revising existing programmes to address the new realities of the post-pandemic economy, it reflected the need for the University to play a role in supporting business resilience through accelerating digital transitions, and included objectives around:

• The completion of Digital Innovation Centre 7 in Spring 2022, enabling over 300 SMEs to benefit from its data analytics transformation programme, and providing an innovation hub to enable leading companies in this area to benefit from the University’s expertise and graduate talent in
  advanced data science and analytics.
• The creation of a Digital Society Institute that will provide a gateway to digital and data expertise in the University.
• New partnerships with the FE sector to develop the longer-term skills pipeline for digital and data-driven industries, including a focus on communities most at risk of missing out from digitally-enabled working futures.

We are currently working on the next Keele Deal, which is likely to encompass a number of priority areas for partners, including productivity and health, and the realisation of a sustainable energy strategic growth corridor along the A50/A500.

Knowledge Exchange Plan 2022-26

Our KE Plan includes Local Growth and Regeneration objectives across SME Innovation and the role of Keele’s Science & Innovation Park, future skills needs, Net Zero, recovery and resilience, health and wellbeing, building our four Institutes (Social Inclusion, Sustainable Futures, Global Health and Digital
Society) and student and graduate outcomes, including the role of graduates in the local economy.

The Plan identifies eight project/programme areas, the following including a focus on local growth:

1. SME Innovation

• Maintain a focus on the development of a strong place-based innovation alliance to drive forward progress on the UK Government’s 2.4% target for R&D investment.
• Continue to deliver a programme of support for SME innovation in the local business base, with the aim of helping a further 500 SMEs between 2021 and 2025.
• This includes:
  • Further expanding Keele’s portfolio of innovation support for local businesses into advanced data analytics, smart energy supply chain development and digital health.
  • Developing our programmes of leadership skill-building for SME owner managers and senior teams to better respond to the demands of the recovery period through process innovation.
  • Building on the foundations of SME innovation put in place over the last HEIF period to develop our portfolio of collaborative industrial innovation projects, supporting an increased number of businesses to attract significant government funding into industrial R&D - an additional 15 projects over the next four years.
• Further development of the Business Gateway to improve partner experience and facilitate increasing intensification of RD&I relationships.

2. Science & Innovation Park

• Continue to develop Keele Science and Innovation Park as a high-value employment growth site, attracting and developing sectors able to benefit from Keele’s research and expertise. Innovation Centres 7 & 8 (advanced digital and veterinary science) to be completed by 2022, and a further two expected to be completed before 2025 (Innovation Centre 9 - Materials for Sustainability and Health is currently in early stages of development).
• Further develop the research, student, graduate and technician engagement with Science Park companies.

3. Smart Energy

• Realise the full benefits to the local area of Keele’s Smart Energy Network Demonstrator working with partners to deliver a programmed roll-out of localised smart energy systems, including the completion and initial implementation of Zero Carbon Rugeley, and the design and early delivery of a system in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
• To support the region’s ambitions to build on its comparative advantage in the energy sector by stimulating green growth through strategic economic development and inward investment, including development of an Innovation Centre at Keele aimed at the clean energy sector.
• Develop improved pathways for skills development linked to smart energy management, building on the national analysis being undertaken by the EnergyRev consortium, and local analysis with partners in SEND and Rugeley.

4. Skills, Progression & Mobility

• Develop a local skills and progression strategy aligned to the role of the University in supporting the area’s recovery, innovation, inclusive green growth and social mobility.
• Agree a further programme of degree and higher-level apprenticeships and related professional learning in this context.
• Support the development of T-level skills in the local area through the Institute of Technology with Newcastle and Stafford College.
• Develop Keele’s response to increasing job losses, the changing labour market and skills needs in the aftermath of the pandemic.
• Extend Keele’s role in local careers guidance, working with the Skills Hub to offer Keele’s digital careers service to local jobseekers.

5. Digital Society

• Create a Digital Society Institute that will provide a gateway to expertise in advanced digital expertise, collaborative research and student and graduate capacity.
• Enable over 500 SMEs to benefit from a Keele data analytics transformation programme, backed by graduate talent.
• Enter into new partnerships with the FE sector to develop the longer-term skills pipeline for digital and data-driven industries,
• Work with Staffordshire County Council and other partners to complete cross-organisational proof-of-concept projects in public policy and practice data analysis, moving towards the establishment of a Staffordshire Centre for Data Analytics during 2022.

6. Arts, Culture & Creativity

• Maintain a focus on urgent priority areas for local communities such as animating town centres.

8. Keele Deal | Health

• Deliver a Keele Deal I Health that responds to both the enduring health challenges in the region and emerging needs relating to post pandemic recovery and resilience, focusing this on supporting place-based workforce development, service transformation and sector innovation and growth.

Keele is an active member of Midlands Innovation Universities – helping to shape, contribute to and benefit from its programmes, including programmes to support economic, social- and health-related impact from the commercialisation of intellectual property generated by the Universities.

Keele is particularly active in the Energy Research Accelerator, contributing strengths around smart localised energy systems alongside other energy and transport expertise from across the region. Keele is the institutional lead for the Research England Development Fund Hydex business engagement project.

Responses to the Pandemic

The first half of the review period was dominated by the need to address the demands of the pandemic. As part of a wide-ranging set of responses, Keele organised a Keele Talks Business webinar aimed at supporting businesses through the emergency response and immediate post-pandemic on topics our partners identified as a priority. These were watched by over 800 people.

We added a further New Enterprise ‘Basecamp’ programme to our portfolio, to address the initial and projected demand for support for necessity entrepreneurship, and the need for SMEs to pivot into new markets.

We also shared Keele’s academic expertise on Long Covid with employers, to support them in understanding the condition at a time when little was known about it, and addressing it effectively in the workplace.

The University played a key role in addressing the conditions for town and city centre economies at a time when retail and leisure outlets were shut down. ArtsKeele worked with creative partner Appetite and the area’s Business Improvement Districts to turn the Three Counties Open Art exhibition into a seasonal light show, which toured four town centres and Trentham Gardens. 247,300 people engaged with the cubes, and the experience has presented a new medium for the University to engage directly with communities.

Local Growth Programmes

Keele continued to run all of the local growth programmes initiated as part of the Keele Deal Culture. Mercia Centre for Innovation Leadership supported a further 71 business leaders to develop their skills and capacity in leading innovation-related change.  The Keele Research and Innovation Support Programme developed, resourced and delivered three-month innovation support involving Keele academics and graduate talent for 96 businesses.  The Smart Energy Network Demonstrator (SEND) provided consultancy and three-month project support to 143 businesses.  Business Bridge, our healthcare and medtech focused programme supported 40 businesses to develop new products for the NHS, and Basecamp provided support for 60 entrepreneurs.

Science & Innovation Park

2019/20 saw the completion of the Denise Coates Foundation Building, in collaboration with Staffordshire County Council, providing a new home for Keele Business School alongside business tenants, and purpose-designed innovation spaces around a central atrium. Completed in August 2019, the facility was quick to attract business tenants, and provides a valuable hub for the wider Science and Innovation Park and for our collaborative activities with external partners.

This model of co-location with industry was also deployed in the new Vet School facility nearby, which was completed during 2021/22.

During 2021/22 we also began work on investment planning to enable the continuation of development on the remaining 52,980m²/570,280ft² development site. This will see Keele seeking investment partners to enable us to provide high quality facilities for supporting innovation in materials, and businesses working in the energy and environment sphere.

Digital Transitions

In 2021/22 we introduced a new SME programme to support the digital transitions of existing SMEs and encourage digital entrepreneurship. This is part of a major strategic development programme over the last two years which includes the development of a Digital Society Institute to work with businesses and other sectors, a new innovation centre part of the University as a hub for business and public sector engagement, a Town Deal-funded Digital Society Centre in the centre of Newcastle-under-Lyme, to support digital entrepreneurship, community-based engagement, student knowledge exchange and enterprise, and Staffordshire Centre for Data Analytics, a local public policy intelligence initiative, as well as our contributions to Silicon Stoke.

Low Carbon Transitions

The early part of the review period was also dominated by the UK’s arrangements to host COP26 and the opportunities this provided to inform and engage businesses on the opportunities in the low carbon economy, and the role they can play in supporting the area’s transition to Net Zero.

In February 2021 Keele worked with BEIS officials to deliver the UK Government’s first regional business-facing event on net zero - Your Business Journey to Net Zero. Keele pulled together a team to design key elements of the programme, including the Ministerial Panel (chaired by Keele’s Vice-Chancellor) with academic contributors and our industry and civil society partners. The University secured a significant proportion of the participant base through its networks and marketing efforts.

Keele ran a Festival to coincide with the COP26 Summit against the dramatic backdrop of Luke Gerram’s GAIA. The Festival included events for regional business audiences. 

The Smart Energy Network Demonstrator (SEND) has gained an international profile for innovation in localised smart energy. The initial infrastructure was installed in 2018/19 in partnership with Siemens, for whom this is a flagship innovation project. The success of the SEND programme has led three major
industrial partnerships at the forefront of UK energy revolution:

• Zero Carbon Rugeley – led by Engie UK (now Equans UK) as part of the UK Industrial Strategy’s Prospering from the Energy Revolution programme, the project has delivered citizen-informed design for a smart localised energy system of Rugeley.
• A partnership led by Cadent and Northern Gas Networks, the Hydeploy project saw Keele become the first site in the UK to accept hydrogen, a fuel with near zero carbon emission potential, into its domestic and commercial gas supply.
• HyDex which connects businesses across the hydrogen economy to support end-to-end value chains.

Skills

Keele partnered with Newcastle and Staffordshire College Group as the Higher Education Partner in the area’s Institute of Technology, which gained planning approval in early 2023.

Backed by training providers, NSCG, Keele University, Burton & South Derbyshire College, and Axia Solutions, alongside key employer partners; Dell, Hitachi, Moog and Siemens, the £13M Institute of Technology (IoT) development will bring together industry, education and research to jointly design and develop education and training opportunities aligned to the skills needed by employers, the local, regional and national economy, and Government priorities.

Keele commissions independent assessments of the impact of its individual programmes as delivery comes to a close, which include feedback from beneficiaries. We recently commissioned a comprehensive Economic Impact Assessment, which estimates an economic impact regionally, across all of our programmes, of between £50m and £80m (taking into account overlapping programmes). The estimations for individual programmes are shown below.

Source: Hatch (2022) Keele University Economic Impact Assessment

This work also included a baseline economic impact assessment, indicating an economic impact outside the Local Growth and Regeneration Programmes of £375m annually.