MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit

Published 1st June 2023

The University of Glasgow is one of 10 Local Policy Innovation Partnerships (LPIPs) to receive phase one funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Local Policy Innovation Partnerships will establish a nationwide network to harness the power of research and innovation to benefit people in all four nations of the UK.

Professor Shona Hilton, Deputy Director of the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, is leading the Glasgow LPIP – ‘Glasgow Aligning Local Policy Partnerships (GALoPP): connecting people, ideas, sectors and policies for inclusive sustainable futures’.

GALoPP aims to catalyse opportunities for innovative and actionable solutions around local policy design within the Glasgow City Region.

It will create the Glasgow City Region Future Look Network of academic, policy, practice, and community partners to undertake solutions-focused engagement to identify and map local policy priorities. It will address: 

• productivity, employment and skills   
• health and social deprivation  
• empowering communities

GALoPP will build on partnerships of the GALLANT project, which is a partnership of University of Glasgow and Glasgow City Council that involves 28 public and private sector partners.  

The £23 million LPIPs programme has been designed to support local and national policymakers in tackling levelling up challenges, driving sustainable and inclusive economic growth, and reducing regional disparities in the UK. The programme is funded via the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Innovate UK (IUK), and UK Research and Innovation’s Creating Opportunities and Improving Outcomes theme.

In phase one of the programme, 10 LPIPs have received up to £50,000 of seed corn funding each. This funding will enable them to build local partnerships and co-develop a research agenda to deliver strong proposals for phase two, where up to four LPIPs will receive up to £4.8 million each.

Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Interim Executive Chair Professor Alison Park said:

“From bridging skills gaps to promoting cultural recovery and building a greener economy, the LPIPs present an exciting new way of using the UK’s strengths in research and innovation to contribute to developing place-based solutions to some of the UK’s most pressing local and regional challenges.

“This first round of funding will enable the LPIPs to build the robust, wide-reaching partnerships necessary to give their proposals the best possible chance of delivering real results for communities and the country as a whole.”

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First published: 1 June 2023