A new partnership led by Ulster University has received funding to support local and national policymakers in tackling levelling up challenges, driving sustainable and inclusive economic growth, and reducing regional disparities in Northern Ireland! 

Ulster University is one of 10 universities from across the UK, and the only university in Northern Ireland, to receive £50,000 of UKRI Seedcorn funding for phase one of the Local Policy Innovation Partnership scheme, which will build cross-sector partnerships that aim to address policy challenges that matter to local people and communities. The NI Local Policy Innovation Partnership project brings together a large team across Ulster University and Queen’s University Belfast, as well as a diverse range of partners, spanning the whole of Northern Ireland.  

The NI Local Policy Innovation Partnership will build a network to develop solutions and share best practices which address skills gaps and inequities across a range of sectors and communities.

As part of the phase one programme of work, they will run a series of workshops with businesses to collate the lived experiences of owners or managers who are facing skills-based challenges and to understand the creative initiatives which different industries are already implementing to help attract talent and fill their skills gaps.

In phase two, the team will bid for up to £4.8m to support a large body of work focused on skills in NI and will include the co-creation and co-production of actionable interventions to aid some of the skills-based challenges NI businesses are facing.

There are also opportunities for businesses to be involved in the phase two application as non-academic stakeholders. Come along to a breakfast event on 24^th July from 8.30am-10am at the Coleraine Campus. There’ll be a panel discussion with sector representatives on skills-based challenges and opportunities in the North West.  

The workshop will be an opportunity to hear more about the project. There will then be interactive roundtable discussions to give you the opportunity to share your skills-based challenges and to put forward your ideas of initiatives which may help alleviate some of these issues.

Sign up here