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MACKIE

LIZ

MACKIE

Validated Lead Expert

Generic Skills

B.1. Understanding of integrated and sustainable urban development: 
My professional career has focused on promoting and supporting sustainable development in urban areas within the UK including London and Coventry. My career includes 5 years working in economic development units in urban local authorities to develop and deliver strategies for local economic growth which put local communities and the local environment at the heart. During this time I was responsible for deveoping innovative, award-winning regeneration initiatives in Brixton providing enterprise-led , community-focused, sustainable solutions to tackle deprivation in one of London’s most disadvantaged areas. I subsequently spent 4 years as Director of Economic Development and European consultancy at Greater London Enterprise, providing expert services on sustainable urban development to London’s 33 local authorities, including services to facilitate exchange of learning and experience across London and Europe. I then spent 18 months as economic development adviser to the London Assembly, supporting their role in scrutiny of the London Mayor’s policies and programmes for urban development. In 2001 I established Shared Enterprise (formerly the Gilfillan Partnership) to support urban development practitioners in local authorities, government agencies and NGOs through policy advice, research, evaluation, identifying and sharing good practice, with a particular focus on active inclusion of excluded groups through labour market integration and community development.
B.2. Understanding of exchange and learning processes at transnational level: 
My experience in transnational exchange includes 4 years as Director of Economic Development and European Consultancy at GLE, where I managed London House which provided a Brussels-base for London’s local authorities. I also managed GLE’s programme of study visits for economic development professionals in London local authorities to learn about urban regeneration in other EU cities; we delivered at least 6 study visits each year with around 10 participants per visit, to cities including Lille, Brussels and Paris. As Director of Shared Enterprise CIC I have supported learning activities for more than 30 transnational partnership projects, including projects funded through URBACT, Progress, EQUAL, ESF and the Lifelong Learning Programme. I have supported learning activities as a project evaluator and as a thematic expert on labour market integration of excluded populations. I have led evaluations of around 20 transnational projects, providing support for learning activities through a range of processes including: facilitating evaluation reviews of project progress and impacts (including through on-line discussion forums); preparing summary reports of evaluation findings for review by project partners; adapting evaluation tools and methodologies to transnational project needs , including Theory of Change, Logic Modelling, Difference in Difference methods; supporting project partners to develop their own evaluation tools and skills; preparing and presenting evaluation reports.
B.3. Proficiency in English: 
English is my mother tongue. I am experienced in communicating in both written and spoken English with partners from varied cultural and linguistic backgrounds. All my written reports are in clear, plain English and I am frequently commissioned to re-write complex reports into more straightforward and accessible English for a wider audience. I have an extensive record of publications in English and regularly give presentations at conferences and workshops.

Expertise for the design and delivery of transnational exchange and learning activities:

Summary Expertise for the design and delivery of transnational exchange and learning activities: 
I have been designing and supporting transnational learning activities for the last 20 years, as a project evaluator, thematic expert and critical friend to lead partners. I always work collaboratively to create a working culture where all partners can contribute and learn effectively, whatever their previous experience and however challenging for them to operate in a second language. I am an experienced facilitator and use many methods to stimulate lively discussion and exchange of views, including speed dating, graphic facilitation, learning circles and unconferences. I have considerable experience in spotting and managing problems within partnerships, including inter-personal conflicts and communication difficulties between partners, and have prevented conflicts from escalating and successfully mediated between partners in more than one project. I use a variety of methods to support learning within transnational partnerships, including facilitating learning sessions and preparing background papers which highlight the evidence, issues and key points for discussion. I am an experienced transnational project evaluator (I have led evaluations of more than 20 transnational projects and around 100 UK urban development initiatives in the last 15 years) and so am highly skilled at capturing the lessons learned and developing recommendations and policy messages from transnational projects for partner organisations and external audiences.

Thematic expertise:

Theme / Policy: 
Active Inclusion of Target Groups
Summary Thematic expertise: 
I am an established expert in active inclusion of disadvantaged and excluded groups, with particular expertise in the labour market inclusion of migrants and ethnic minority communities within the EU. I have advised and supported transnational projects aimed at inclusion of migrant populations on many projects, including as a thematic expert on labour market inclusion of migrant populations on the MILE URBACT project, as critical friend to the European Migrant Advisor Toolkit project, and as evaluator of the Integraction and Language Interpreter Training as a Stepping Stone to Work projects (all Lifelong Learning programme projects). Within the UK I have worked with many city authorities and national charities to advise on, design or evaluate policies and programmes to promote active inclusion of migrant communities. I have a Masters degree in Race and Ethnic Studies and I am currently completing doctoral research on the relationship between ethnic diversity and social cohesion. I have presented expert papers on active inclusion of migrant and ethnic minority communities at many conferences and events, including the annual Black Training and Enterprise Group conferences and the 2014 British Sociological Association annual conference.

Expertise support to local authorities and other stakeholders in designing & delivering integrated and participatory policies

E.1. Knowledge on participatory methods and tools for co-production and implementation of local polices : 
From 2008 to 2010, I worked with Wandsworth Council Economic Development Office to support development of proposals to the Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI) and Right to Bid programmes, UK programmes which were initiated by then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown to promote sustainable urban development by stimulating enterprise growth and other locally-led actions in disadvantaged local areas. I identified and brought together all relevant local players into a local partnership group comprising Councillors, council officers, community organisations, businesses, statutory agencies and local residents. I facilitated a series of meetings of this partnership group to generate ideas and to link these to existing policies and programmes in order to add value and to generate match funding. I worked with the partnership group to co-produce the LEGI and Right to Bid proposals and I organised and facilitated various events, including public meetings and launch events, to gain Council-wide and community support for the proposals.
E.2. Knowledge on integrated approach for the design, delivering, monitoring and evaluation of urban strategies/policies: 
I worked closely with Westminster City Council from 2003 to 2008 to support the Urban Regeneration team’s pioneering action-planning approach, which brought together city practitioners and community stakeholders to design and agree local area action plans for sustainable urban community regeneration. Over this five year period I designed key performance indicators and monitoring systems for local area action plans, so that progress and impacts could be tracked and measured. Another example is my work for Newham Council in 2009, where I designed a framework and methodology for evaluating a new policy approach to encourage people receiving housing benefit from the Council to move from benefits to work. The evaluation used a randomised control trial methodology to provide robust evidence of the effectiveness of the pilot programme and generate recommendations for the Council’s future policy in this area.
E.3. Awareness of the main policy and funding schemes for sustainable urban development at EU and national level: 
I stay up to date on relevant policies and programmes through membership of professional bodies, regular attendance at conferences, seminars and other events and participating in formal and informal training. I have been a member of the Institute for Economic Development (the national UK body for economic development professionals) since 2002. I am a member of the Social Research Association and the British Sociological Association. I regularly attend urban development policy and practitioner conferences, including the Institute for Economic Development annual conferences, Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion events, briefing events by the Oxford University Centre on Migration and other academic events. I attend European programme briefings and road show events organised by the Department for Work and Pensions or the Greater London Authority. I read newsletters and website updates from Urbact, Eurocities, DG Regio and the OECD. I participate in regular professional training to maintain and update my skills including, for example, a 5 day summer school in Paris in 2013 on ‘Survey methods for researching migrant populations’ as part of the EU Quantitative Research Methods in the Social Sciences programme.
E.4. Ability to understand specific local situations and adapt tools and content to different local realities: 
From 2006 to 2008 I worked with seven cities across the EU to support their work to develop Local Action Plans (LAPs) and Regional Action Plans (RAPs) for social inclusion in the context of the National Action Plan Against Poverty and Social Exclusion developed by each Member State. My role here was as a thematic expert on social inclusion of migrants, ethnic minorities and other excluded groups. I supported the partnership with briefing papers which included international examples of good practice in social inclusion interventions, and to support each partner individually to develop their local or regional action plan within the overall context of their National Action Plan. This meant supporting cities, individually and through thematic network meetings, to develop local strategies for implementation of measures to combat poverty and social inclusion, within the overarching objectives, timetables and budgets for the national strategy; identifying appropriate indicators for monitoring and evaluation and selecting those most relevant to the local or regional context; identifying relevant funding programmes and priorities; and preparing and sharing templates for developing proposals drawing on good practice adapted to meet local priorities.
Summary Expertise: 
I have worked extensively to support the design and delivery of urban development strategies and projects by local authorities and other stakeholders in the UK and in other Member States. My UK experience includes support for the London local authorities for Wandsworth,Haringey, Harrow, Hackney, Newham, Lambeth and Westminster to develop, implement, research or evaluate policies or projects promoting active inclusion of disadvantaged or excluded communities. My EU experience includes support for local authorities in Venice, Celje, Bratislava, Prague, Lisbon and Thessaloniki to design and produce local action plans for social inclusion of excluded populations. All my work in this field has facilitated participatory approaches, engaging local stakeholders through partnership groups, local action groups or similar mechanisms to ensure that strategies, projects and policies are co-produced and co-owned by all relevant local agencies and communities.

Informations

Residence location:
United Kingdom
Languages:
English - Mother tongue
Foreign Languages level: 
Foreign languages: 
,
Foreign Languages level: 
Foreign languages: 
Email:
liz@sharedenterprise.org.uk

Area of expertise