This blog was first published on Medium by Policy Leeds.
‘YPIP’ is bringing together academia, policy makers and communities to support place-based initiatives through knowledge exchange and development.
“The Yorkshire Policy Innovation Partnership is committed to the idea that systematically linking the region’s multi-level governance structures with communities and the organisations that represent them can lead to higher levels of prosperity, health, and well-being, as well as to more climate-ready living.” — Lauren Cox, YPIP Communications and Engagement Manager
The Yorkshire and Humber context and foundations
The Yorkshire Policy Innovation Partnership (YPIP), created in 2024 after extensive consultations in 2023, brings together researchers from the region’s 12 universities with Yorkshire and Humber policy stakeholders — local and combined authorities, the business sector, voluntary and non-profit organisations and enterprises, and members of marginalised communities — with the objective of co-producing policy innovations and insights that can enhance inclusive growth and sustainable living. It is expanding access to regional data with the aim of enabling a more integrated and collaborative multi-level governance structure that more systematically includes a role for community voice.
YPIP is part of the wider UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funded initiative of Local Policy Innovation Partnership (LPIP), with three further LPIPs in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Part of UKRI’s work to create opportunities and improve outcomes across the UK, LPIPs look to bring together devolved governments, local authorities, businesses and communities to harness the power of research and innovation in addressing local challenges.
Despite severely straitened budgets, local government have continued to strive for innovation, and in some cases, innovative and stronger partnership working has been born out of resource scarcity. However, a systematic and sustained innovation framework has not yet been able to be implemented. Academia is shifting to recognise the need to create local engagement with policy makers and communities to co-produce collaborative work and solutions to strategic challenges. The devolution process in Yorkshire, which has now seen the creation of 4 Mayoral Combined Authorities, offers YPIP a testbed to explore this: how can stakeholders bring together their skillsets, expertise and lived experiences to address the challenges they face through informed decision-making? The foundations for this type of work have already been laid by Yorkshire Universities, the Yorkshire and Humber Policy Engagement Research Network (Y-PERN), the Yorkshire and Humber Climate Commission, and the Yorkshire and Humber Applied Research Collaborative. Along with these initiatives’ many partners, the YPIP project seeks to extend the reach and impact of this collaborative regional infrastructure.
The change YPIP hopes to make
Yorkshire Policy Innovation Partnership aims to demonstrate how a more inclusive, sustainable, and resilient region can be achieved by creating multi-sectoral partnerships that engage communities in policy processes. Our activities are exploring and testing the proposition that co-design can lead to policy innovations that support more equitable and sustainable outcomes. To achieve this aim, YPIP is building on these existing multi-sectoral partnerships between academia, local government and community organisations across the region to support the development and application of local knowledge. The initiative will facilitate opportunities for low income, marginalised and/or spatially isolated communities to work alongside academics and decision makers on solutions to localised challenges. By building and embedding these connections in future policy making and through the amplification of peoples lived experiences, YPIP will shift structures and processes to ‘work with’ people instead of ‘doing to’ them.
How communities sit at the heart of YPIP
The YPIP Community Panel provides a concrete example of YPIP’s intention. The Panel consists of 30 members of the public with different life experiences, perspectives and skillsets. The onboarding process for the YPIP Community Panel has fostered a supportive and collaborative environment, enabling the group to grow closer, share their diverse experiences, and build a strong supportive network. In its formative sessions, panel members navigated the challenges of building trust and sharing experiences. This team building has positioned the Community Panel to play a central role in the entire project; members of the Panel are participating in YPIP’s governance board, helping guide work in the project’s five thematic areas — inclusive business practices, climate action, access to data, communities, and culture and the creative economy — and are participating in the grant review panel for The Communities Innovating Yorkshire Fund.
Local communities are central to YPIP’s objectives and to the project’s £800k commissioning programme ‘The Communities Innovating Yorkshire Fund’ (CIY Fund) which gives external stakeholders an opportunity to further explore and generate insights aligned to YPIP’s themes and aims. The fund encourages proposals that take on one or more strategic challenge(s) in one of YPIP’s five thematic areas, explore an innovative response to this challenge, and achieve policy impact by sharing learning with relevant stakeholders. The CIY Fund has received overwhelming interest: over 300 representatives from across the region engaged in team-led information sessions during the application process, and over 200 applications were submitted by the 23 March deadline. This high level of interest highlights both the strain on budgets across all sectors and the widespread intention of organisations across the region to deepen their impact on the region’s challenges. Funding for some of these proposals will be enabled in late May; there will not be monies to support most of these 200 proposals. The YPIP project team is utilising their connections and networks to signpost all CIY Fund applicants, successful and unsuccessful, to suggest alternative funding sources, to raise awareness of existing or emerging relevant work in the region, and to support relationship and network-building amongst applicants and other stakeholders.
The challenges facing policy engagement
In declaring its intention of enhancing communities’ voice, YPIP is stepping into a huge area of societal challenge. The previous experiences of many residents in the region have led them to distrust decision-makers and disengage from policy processes. Ultimately, the rhetoric that has inspired YPIP — co-production, community-led initiatives and research, and true participation — must be complemented by action — the education, upskilling, and engagement of members of all the region’s diverse communities. YPIP is seeking to open the way to this epochal change by involving project and work-package participants with opportunities to participate in and/or to critically assess policy processes that affect their lives.
The YPIP project team, spanning academics, policymakers and social enterprises across Yorkshire, are committed to the idea that systematically linking the region’s multi-level governance structures with communities and the organisations that represent them can lead to higher levels of prosperity, health, and well-being, as well as to more climate-ready living.
To follow our journey on making a difference to policy engagement and informed decision making, please follow the Yorkshire Policy Innovation Partnership on LinkedIn and sign up to the monthly newsletter mailing list.
Blog written for Policy Leeds by Lauren Cox. Lauren is Yorkshire Policy Innovation Partnership (YPIP) Communications and Engagement Manager. Prior to joining the YPIP project in November 2024, Lauren spent more than five years working with the voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) sector across Luton and Bedfordshire. She held posts within the Luton Council Social Justice Unit and a criminal justice charity working on a project funded by the Office of the Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner. Lauren’s current role is to help raise the profile of YPIP, whilst also engaging with initiatives that align with the organisation’s themes and aims to create connections and share best practice.
