The RSS has teamed up with Open Innovations (formerly ODI Leeds) on a project to explore 'levelling up' - a term currently used by the UK government when referring to its post-pandemic recovery plan.
The RSS recently responded to the Treasury Committee inquiry on equal recovery post-pandemic, expressing concern that current data is not up to the job and calling for a rethink of what data the government is collecting. The new project aims to help define, measure, show and illustrate what the term 'levelling up' means - and how to track progress by inviting discussion and suggestions.
The project launches with an interactive live event on 8 December 2021, 9am, that will be live-streamed on YouTube. The launch event will feature talks in the morning followed by a live Q&A. Speakers will include:
- Andy Haldane, Permanent Secretary to the Levelling Up Taskforce
- Neil O'Brien, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State TBC
- Jodie Levy, Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sports
- Stian Westlake, Royal Statistical Society
- Tom Bridges, Director Cities Advisory, Arup
- Tera Allas, McKinsey
- Nancy Hey, What Works Centre for Wellbeing
- Paul Swinney, Centre for Cities
- Alan Reiss, West Yorkshire Combined Authority.
Further details to come - please register to save the date in your diary. The project is due to run until February 2022 with three key stages and events to accompany them, plus opportunities for people to contribute their feedback, suggestions, data sources, etc.