Briefing Paper 14

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Observatory PASCAL
Place Management, Social Capital and Learning Regions PASCAL UNIVERSITIES REGIONAL ENGAGEMENT PROJECT (PURE) PURE Briefing Paper No. 14 September 2009
A. Scope and Purpose of this Briefing Paper This Briefing Paper is to assist Regions, and especially at this stage Cluster Coordinators, to lead the next and central phase of the Pascal Project. It should be read in close association with the previous Briefing Paper 13 dated July 2009. It is intended that significant practical progress will be made in each Region during this time, on lines set out in its own Action Plan, with help and support from the PURE central office located in Glasgow. A number of different people will be available to assist each Region in this development work. During this period a second visit of a Consultative Development Group (CDG2) is expected in the early part of 2010. These are being coordinated by Mike Osborne and Alan Foster in Glasgow. Already the dates and CDG memberships have been fixed in many cases – for example for Buskerud, Gaborone, Jamtland, Lesotho, Melbourne, Northern Illinois, and Varmland. The others CDG2 dates will be settled in the next little while. The full schedule of CDG 2nd visits, including the membership of the CDGs, will be shared with all Regions once they are all settled, so that you can see where your work sits in the context of fellow Regions. Please note also that the Glasgow Region has its initial CDG in early October (6-9 October 2009). The new Cohort 1 Region of Helsinki will have its 1st CDG in the week starting 9 November, and a further new Region, Colorado in the United States, is also joining us and will have a CDG visit early in 2010. Other Regions are expected to come into the Project in late 2009 and during 2010. Although we will be as flexible as possible over starting dates, at a certain point we will group and define these as the 2nd Cohort of Regions. The Cohorts, which become a vital part of the ongoing networking and development work from this month (September 2009) onwards, will be open to these new Regions at any time – see notes below on Cluster management and functions. We will seek to bring these new Regions into the Clusters as their interests and priorities get defined, in the same way as has happened in each of the Regions already taking part.
B.
Who is the Paper For? This Briefing Note is therefore addressed to the Link Person in each Region and through them to the Regional Steering Group for the Project. It is also being made available to new Regions about to or interested in joining PURE, so that they can see how they can relate to the ongoing work. In this way they can quickly make a contribution as well as gaining from the knowledge built up already. The Clusters will be a significant part of our arrangements for
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Place Management, Social Capital and Learning Regions exchanging experience between each Region and also across Cohorts. It is hoped that new Regions will join appropriate clusters by arrangement quite early after the beginning of their participation. We will take care to ensure that this does not become a ‘conservative’ process and force, limiting the breadth of focus for regional development and engagement. That is to say, new Cluster Themes can be considered at any time, and new Clusters formed if there is the need and demand.
C.
The Clusters – Subjects, Members and Coordinators For convenience each Cluster is identified by a number and abbreviation. At present we are launching 6 Clusters, each led by a Cluster Coordinator as shown below. I am calling this person for convenience the Cluster Leader. The lists below are of Regions for whom this is a development priority. They will expect to be actively involved. Other Regions (established and new) will have access to the work of the Clusters via the Website (see D below), and may by agreement join the Cluster as active participants rather than just observers.
Cluster 1: Regional Innovation and Renewal (RIR) (8 members) Cluster leader David Campbell (Melbourne) (Adviser Bruce Wilson, RMIT)         Buskerud Essex Flanders Gaborone Kent Jamtland Melbourne South Transdanubia
Cluster 2: Social Inclusion and Active Citizenship (SIAC) (7 members) Cluster leader Jan Geens (Flanders) (Adviser Mireille Pouget, Glasgow)        Darling Downs Flanders Kent Lesotho Melbourne Northern Illinois Puglia
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Place Management, Social Capital and Learning Regions Cluster 3: Creative and Cultural Industries (CCI) (5 members) Cluster leader Henrik Zipsane (Jamtland) (Adviser James Powell, PASCAL Board)      Buskerud Flanders Gaborone Kent Jamtland
Cluster 4: Green Skills and Jobs (GSJ) (5 members) Cluster leader Diana Robinson (Northern Illinois) (Adviser Steve Garlick, PASCAL Board)      Essex Kent Melbourne Northern Illinois Puglia
Cluster 5: Tertiary Systems (TS) (3 members) Cluster leader Paul Crawford (Northern Illinois) (Adviser Chris Duke, PURE Director)  Darling Downs  Glasgow  Northern Illinois Cluster 6: Sustaining Rural and Remote Communities etc (SRRC) (2 members) Cluster leader TBA (Adviser Kate Sankey, Glasgow)   Buskerud Puglia
This Cluster remains on the ‘active list’, as it seems probable that 1-2 more Regions may wish to join it shortly. If this happens a Leader will be identified and it will join the on-going work of the Clusters, via the Cluster Leaders’ Group. At present there are not enough members to constitute the proposed 7th Cluster on Lifelong Learning and the Learning Region (LLLR). It two or more (present or new) Regions wish to with join the Hungarian Region of South Transdanubia then Cluster 7 LLLR can be activated. If your Region is wrongly located in any of these Clusters, or if in the light of further work and reflection you now wish to join any other of the proposed Clusters, please let me know. The membership of the Clusters will be updated to reflect any changes and additions. New Regions joining PURE will be encouraged to identify Cluster interests and, through the Cluster leaders, to join. New Clusters will be created where the need arises.
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Place Management, Social Capital and Learning Regions D. How Will the Clusters Work? Cluster size varies between 2-3 and 8, and the nature of the subjects is also diverse. It will be for each Cluster, through its leader as the coordinator, to determine its own best agenda, timeline, and ways of working through these. To begin with, each Cluster leader and the lead person in each member of that Cluster should read through the Action Plans the reports of the CDG visits (the RVR1s), and the Region Profiles and Briefing Papers. All these should be available for each Region on the Website. The Cluster leader should then, this month, propose a Cluster work-plan and an agenda for a discussion among their respective Cluster members, facilitated by Cluster Administrator Alan Foster (see below). Before that, it would be helpful for Cluster leaders to discuss together how to go about using the Cluster arrangement to give full benefit to each Region taking part. It will be useful for each leader to think flexibly what their own Cluster might best set out to do, and to approach this first Cluster leaders’ discussion in a brainstorming and ideas-sharing kind of way We visualise the Cluster leaders ‘meeting’ periodically in this way to compare notes and ideas, and the members of each Cluster, convened by their leaders, doing likewise. Alan Foster in the Glasgow office will act as facilitator and provide a clearing house service for these operations. It will be for each Cluster to decide what it wants to prioritise, and how Cluster members can best assist one another within the Cluster to achieve understanding and results over a 12 month period. Especially for the larger Clusters (RIR and SIAC) there may be merit in working as sub-groups if priorities and interests favour this. For all clusters, it would be good where a common or ‘generic’ agenda emerges for that theme (an agenda of wider interest for regional development and engagement in this subject area generally) if the Cluster members as a team could identify this, and share out the work of clarifying how these issues can be tackled in different kinds of Regions and settings. In summary, as I see it as present, each Cluster will thus plan to achieve two things: (a) assist the Cluster members to carry out their Action Plans as these apply to this Cluster theme. (b) contribute to the collective understanding and ‘property’ (conceptualisation, guides for action, gathering of examples of good practice) of their subject for the PURE Project as a whole, and for inclusion in our end-of-2010 conclusions to be drawn together at Gaborone. E. Cluster Support and Means of Communication We visualise each Cluster having a direct link with the Glasgow office as the support facility, and also having the support of one ‘central’ PURE member with special interest and expertise in its subject field. This person may join the facilitated discussions as a ‘supernumerary adviser’, and is bracketed above.
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Place Management, Social Capital and Learning Regions There will be one common interface for communications within clusters, which will allow both asynchronous and synchronous interactions Firstly there will asynchronous web-based text exchanges in forums that will shortly be made available for each cluster. This will be found through a link within the PURE section of the PASCAL website, and you will need to use your current password to access this. Secondly there will be a synchronous system allowing PC-based video – conferencing. We have been trialling GotoMeeting for audio-conferencing, but have concluded that it is not robust enough. We are therefore likely to revert to Adobe Connect. In the case of both forms of communication we will send full details of how to use them, protocols and technical requirements in BP15. In the short-term we will arrange a simply telephone-based conference for each cluster to kick it off. F. Next Steps for Clusters The Glasgow office through Dr Alan Foster will set up a first meeting between Cluster Coordinators (see D above). This group will then arrange their own future meetings and exchanges as they see fit. If any Region (through its leading Link Person to whom this Paper is being sent) wishes to change Cluster membership, please let both Alan and myself know as well as the Cluster Coordinator. The work of the Clusters in some cases appears to focus mainly on substantive areas of regional development (Clusters 2, 3, 4 and 6), and in other cases more on some of processes and mechanisms for better engagement (Clusters 1 and 5). In practice each is likely to find itself addressing both ‘content’ and ‘process’. Other aspects of the PURE Project will continue at the same time as, and where appropriate in consultation with, the Clusters. We will continue to follow the defined objectives and arrangements of the Project as set out in the first Briefing Paper, and developed together since then. G. Action Plans For the implementation of Action Plans (APs) and the general development work of the Region a central PURE contact person will keep in touch with the Region Link Person (LP). In some cases this is the same person as led the CDG; in other cases a different contact person. This person can be used as an adviser and sounding board by the Region, through the LP and the Regional Steering Group. These advisers are: Gaborone and Lesotho – Mike Osborne Melbourne and Darling Downs – Bruce Wilson Puglia and Transdanubia – Chris Duke Buskerud, Jamtland and Varmland – Steve Garlick N Illinois – Hans Schuetze Glasgow, Thames Gateway, Essex and Kent – Chris Shepherd
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Place Management, Social Capital and Learning Regions Flanders - John Field Action Plans are not fixed and unchangeable for the life of the PURE Project. For Cohort 1 Regions, this ends formally speaking at the end of 2010 following the Conference in Botswana. David Campbell has asked about revising and updating Action Plans. I suggest that each Region sends to the Glasgow office, with a copy to me, a brief review note on progress with their Action Plans this December (2009). Also, each Region can update its AP in the same way, at any time. Action Plans are now going up on the Website as they are received. You may wish to fill out and change your own AP (a) you read what others are doing and (b) as you get into the work in the next few weeks.
H.
Other Matters Future Briefing Papers and other consultations will keep the Regions informed of future events. These include in particular the major Project meetings in Jamtland Sweden next June, and the Gaborone meeting in Botswana at the end of November next year. At each of these meetings, Regions’ experience will be shared and there will be discussion of the more generalised learning and conclusions of the Project as a whole. For the Project as a whole we will want to draw on PURE Regions’ Cluster and other work to address questions about:    the role of national government, and the effects of its policies on regional engagement for development; the processes and requirements for both Regions and Higher or Tertiary Education Institutions to work as effective ‘engagement systems’; what arrangements work best in different kinds of tertiary institutions and in what policy environments to enable institutions to engage productively and well.
Benchmarking, for both regions and institutions, remains a central and defining feature of the Project. We will compare experiences and develop the tools as a high priority, directly with all Regions, throughout the life of the Project. Other aspects of the work of the Pascal International Observatory will continue throughout the life of PURE, and reported so far as possible through the Pascal Website. In some cases Clusters may wish to connect directly with another activity to widen its scope and enrich its work. For example, at the 33rd Pascal Board meeting it was suggested that the embryonic Pascal International Exchange Programme on Cultural Institutions, Libraries and Heritage might wish to make connections with the work of Cluster 3 (CCI) as both develop their programmes of activity. Such links can be made direct, or facilitated through the Glasgow office. This Briefing Paper is as finalised in September 2009. Subsequent changes of Cluster Membership are found in BP 15.
Chris Duke, Academic Director PURE Project September 2009
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