RPF — News — The Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal

A new action plan, which puts business growth and innovation at the forefront, has been launched.

Developed collaboratively by Innovate UK, Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region, and Scottish Enterprise, the plan aims to build a strong, resilient and investment-attractive economy by leveraging regional strengths and capabilities. It was launched at the University of Edinburgh’s Futures Institute at an event attended by business leaders from across the region.

The document has identified key areas with high innovation potential, helping to position Edinburgh and South East Scotland as leaders in advanced manufacturing, life sciences and financial services. The City Region’s initial focus is on three priority innovation clusters:

Sustainable Advanced Manufacturing cluster at the Forth Green Freeport
Health cluster in Edinburgh’s BioQuarter
Financial Services and Fintech cluster in central Edinburgh

The plan also establishes core areas of alignment between Innovate UK, Scottish Enterprise and local leaders, including shared ambitions to:

Expand collaborative research and development between industry and research organisations
Develop new strategies for key growth sectors
Support under-served communities to drive more equitable and inclusive growth
Ensure existing business support is made more visible and easier to access
Support the uptake of technologies to achieve Net Zero targets
Strengthen the support pathway for small businesses from start-up to scale-up

From these shared ambitions, the plan outlines a series of commitments to streamline innovation support, amplify regional assets, attract inward investment and address innovation skills gaps.

Read the Edinburgh and South East Scotland Regional Innovation Action Plan

Partners across the region have been working hard to deliver on the Edinburgh and South East Scotland (ESES) City Region Deal that will bring £1.3 billion investment over 15 years. This partnership has helped us to develop a Regional Prosperity Framework, and it is on this document that we are reaching out to you for comments, feedback and ideas on what matters to you for our region.

The ESES region has a very strong platform to build on, but there are issues that we need to address to support our regional prosperity. These include:

the response from Covid-19;
the need to address societal imbalances across the region; and
the urgent need to deliver this within a net zero emissions context.

The Regional Prosperity Framework is a draft plan to grow and recover our economy sustainably. It looks at everything from transport and housing to education and digital inclusion; to economic development and climate change.

The key themes of the Regional Prosperity Framework are to secure:

a FLOURISHING economy, environment and ecology, households and places;
a RESILIENT workforce, climate responses, infrastructure and buildings; and
an INNOVATIVE Private Sector, Third Sector (including Further and Higher Education) and Public Sector.

This consultation is open to individuals, businesses and other organisations, professional bodies and charities.

The Regional Prosperity Framework will inform future policy creation across many organisations – all aimed at ensuring the region is as resilient as possible, despite current challenges, and has the right infrastructure to be a key contributor to the economy of Scotland.

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