A vision for change

That infrastructure investment alone cannot tackle decades of entrenched inequalities between places?

That new partnerships between communities, government, business and many others will be required to imagine and build flourishing new local systems, and dismantle old ones?

Throughout the pandemic, public debate about the importance of ‘levelling up’ communities across the UK has never been greater. The scale of entrenched inequalities between places has never been clearer. Yet we are only just starting to understand what it will really take to have a transformative effect on people and places, and there are no easy answers.

At Innovation Unit, our vision is for a world in which all people belong and contribute to thriving societies. We have worked on place-based transformation of public services for 20 years. We are now working hard on pooling and applying our expertise, insights and experience to help transform towns and communities across the UK.

In this series of blogs, we have gathered learning from our own work, from case studies and from the long literature on transforming place to offer up into this critically important debate. Change in this ambitious arena can only come about through partnerships and alliances, and we hope this contribution helps us to meet like-minded people to drive change together.

Scroll down to read the blogs. Find out more about Innovation Unit’s role in place-based transformation.