The Edinburgh City Region Deal is a major investment of the UK and Scottish government lead by the regions six regional local authorities as well as local higher education institutions. The University of Edinburgh is leading the City Deals’ Data Driven Innovation programme, managing huge capital investments that will position Edinburgh as the “Data Capital of Europe”. A major aim of the Deal, which features investments in transport, housing, an integrated skills and training programme (known as IRES), and innovation, is to achieve inclusive economic growth to ensure that opportunities provided by the investment support a more inclusive regional economy. This means that all the partners need to work closely to promote gender parity, opportunities for those with protected characteristics or from deprived areas, and also show benefits for economic actors, like SMEs, that often get left behind in investment programmes. Procurement and DDI University Procurement is working closely with the University’s Data Driven Innovation (DDI) team and the City Region Deal leads to implement innovative approaches to procurement to promote inclusive growth. This includes joint-working on community benefits requirements, which are partnership activities undertaken with suppliers to deliver training, local supply chain spend, innovation or other benefits to a region in addition to the main purpose of public contracts. It also includes engagement with social enterprises and supported businesses through procurement, and work with Scottish Government on promoting positive actions on promoting equality and diversity through procurement. The University is also working to engage City Region Deal suppliers in University-lead innovation activities, especially on global challenges like the climate emergency, circular economy and biodiversity. This includes Robertson Construction, which has partnered with DDI Students as Change Agents programme, working with Edinburgh Uni students across disciplines to use data innovation to help design out waste from the construction process. As the economic impact of COVID 19 continues to emerge, Deal partners will be working together with suppliers to see how partnership working can also support an ‘inclusive recovery’, and how smarter leveraging of procurement data and relationships could identify ways to more effectively support region businesses and workers. More information For more information on the Deal and DDI, please see http://www.acceleratinggrowth.org.uk/ and www.ddi.ac.uk This article was published on 2024-07-01
