We have extensive experience of innovation related policy development at a UK level. Examples include the longitudinal Impact of Mentoring sSupport to SMEs for HM Treasury, the design and evaluation of the UK Manufacturing Advisory Service for the Department for Business Innovation & Skills, Evaluations of Regional Innovation Systems projects in Scotland and the design of a Regional Innovation Company in the English Midlands. These exercises incorporate: Stakeholder Engagement; Focus Groups; Briefing Papers; Population surveys; Surveys of beneficiary SMEs and public meetings. The Stakeholder Engagement exercises typically involve facilitated meetings with groups of informed stakeholders who are mobilised to provide support and advice of the proposed policy interventions. Stakeholders will not all support the policies! These meetings require careful design and management so that conflicting views can be captured, and synthesised in a way that is acceptable for all those attending.

I was engaged as Director of a High Growth Coaching Pilot for SMEs that was undertaken for the UK HM Treasury. The aim of the project was to assess how coaching/mentoring might impact upon the performance of SMEs over the course of 12 months. I designed the appraisal framework and the monitoring interventions that would be completed. Both firms and coaches were interviewed (separately and together). The approach was delivered across 7 UK regions, each of which was using a different coaching methodology so the effects of these methodologies had to be factored into the appraisal and monitoring design. In terms of outputs, the performance of each regional coaching approach had to be presented separately along with a composite assessment of the coaching input's overall impact. This required complex data collection and analysis protocols to ensure the data and findings were robust. Following completion of our assessment, the HM Treasury approved High Growth Coaching as one of the UK's core business support interventions. I was engaged by the UK's Department of Business Innovation & Skills to facilitate a group of lead practitioners in the redesign of the UK's Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS). This was on the back of having evaluated the Service in one of the UK regions. While only in one Region, my evaluation showed how firms engaged with the service and identified what motivated them to avail of this strand of support yet reject many similar offers from government. The outcome of the strategy review was a significant broadening of the MAS offer to include manufacturing strategy assistance. The UK's Future Cities Catapult engaged me to develop an SME engagement process for them that would provide a transparent approach for engaging innovative firms that would be appropriate either for support from the Catapult's partners, or to engage with the Catapult as a collaborative partner. My initial process design/flowchart stimulated considerable discussion amongst the senior management team and resulted in influencing significantly the organisation's strategic direction. We continue to have a relationship with the Catapult in other areas (specifically, linking with Universities on cities' based projects).

As my professional work requires being fully up to date with policy developments, I tend to acquire my knowledge through incremental research and passive monitoring. Twitter has been an excellent tool for monitoring both policy announcements and the ways that organisations might respond to them. For University commercialisation and innovation, Horizon 2020 - (€80 billion over 7 years) - is the single most important programme as it funds industry relevant research at HEIs. It has raised numerous calls that are relevant to cities covering for example, sustainable urban transport, sustainable infrastructure and calls for "big data" which is a particular priority for cities given the emergent need to analyse enormous and complex data sets. Other support measures include COSME, LIFE and Eurostars. Structural funds are an important policy instrument, while the transition to European Structural & Infrastructure Funding is a very significant development that will have a significant impact on for Universities and business support to SMEs. The move to payment by output could have significant cash flow implications for some Universities but the amalgamation of funding sources under the ESIF banner is likely to be more of an opportunity than a threat. At a UK level, the UK Government’s City Deal investment of between £1bn and £3bn for selected cities over 10 -15 years is the most significant development.. This has the opportunity to transform cities facing long-term structural change. Separately and linked to the point on structural Funds above, there are three parallel policy thrusts taking place in the UK that will impact upon Universities' engagement with business. First, ESIF funding is being administered by Local Enterprise Partnerships (regional administrative organisations). Innovation is a key ESIF theme and Universities are expected to be the supplier of innovative solutions to SMEs. Second, the UK Government created a new Charter Mark for Business Schools who are now tasked to provide business support to SMEs. Third, UK Research Councils are demanding evidence of effective SME engagement. These three drivers are leading to a fundamental shift in the way HEI's commercialise their research The Government’s InnovateUK funds specialist "Catapult Centres" including (my client) Future Cities Catapult and Satellite Applications. They are pushing for open data from UK cities to support new and innovative businesses These are typical of local initiatives and policy responses across the EU