Jon Gleek, City of Doncaster Council and Policy Fellow at UCL, introduced the concept of ‘Research Cities,’ a research project focussed on the systemic infrastructure needed in cities and places between academia and local government to work together. This is positioned as a way of describing the connections, collaborations and linkages in places and communities to jointly tackle the socio-economic and public policy issues in that place.
The centrepiece of this concept is the development of a maturity framework for these types of collaborations. There are well-established maturity frameworks already used by Local Authorities, with notable examples including the LGA’s Data maturity framework, and this policy fellowship project seeks to develop an innovative one to describe the joint working relationships between academic and local policy actors.
Subsequent presentations addressed what role an ‘Areas of Research Interest Plus’ (ARI Plus) programme can play in helping local authorities meet evidence needs and build relationships with university researchers. Areas of Research Interest are expressions of needs for evidence from governmental organisations at different levels, as well as parliaments and assemblies, targeted initially at researchers in universities and other research organisations, and in some cases with aspirations to draw on evidence from other sectors including community organisations.
The first ARIs presentation was given by Abi Rowson, representing the Horizons Institute at the University of Leeds and the Policy & Intelligence Team at Leeds City Council. Abi shared key aspects of the recently published report, ‘Academic-Policy Engagement at the Local Level: The Leeds approach to developing Areas of Research Interest’. She outlined the University of Leeds and Leeds City Council’ approach to strategic collaboration, which had led to ARIs from Leeds City Council being published since 2022, with accompanying events, and 23 collaborative projects being funded from Research England Policy Support Fund grants. The University and City Council published a Collaboration Framework in 2024.
Phillip Nelson from the West Midlands Combined Authority then spoke about their recent publication of ARIs. These were grouped around four mayoral priorities: Growth for everyone, Homes for everyone, Jobs for everyone and Journeys for everyone, as well as cross-cutting topics identified during the ARI generation process, being governance, health, wellbeing & prevention and social inclusion. Policy teams had developed questions initially through a workshop with the UPEN ARIs sub-committee being represented, and then a process of internal refinement and senior sign-off had led to publication in May 2025, with promotion now ongoing. with openness to approaches from researchers.
Rhiannon Wilson then shared the experience of PolicyBristol at the University of Bristol working with Bristol City Council on ARIs. PolicyBristol was also able to secure some committed Policy Support Fund grant income and approached Bristol City Council to collaborate on developing ARIs. 5 co-developed research and knowledge exchange projects were funded in 2024 as a result. Rhiannon spoke of the work put in to identify some funding ahead of time, and the need to develop short descriptions around key themes that emerged through the ARI process, to help in communications with policy teams and researchers.
Nicky Buckley, Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge concluded the presentations by outlining the three-year ‘UK-wide ARIs’ project within the new UPEN Programmes grant. Nicky is co-leading this project with Rob Davies, UCL, and it will involve providing toolkits and advice to local and combined authorities, devolved governments and legislatures, for an ‘ARI Plus’ set of activities. This will involve making links and bringing multiple ARIs together on the UPEN website; support for workshops in particular localities and across geographies to share learning, as well as future Policy Fellow secondment resource to be deployed. The Young Foundation will be running a parallel project within the UPEN Programmes grant which will include a community policy academy and processes for community groups to contribute to ARIs.
Workshop participants contributed a wealth of expertise to two frameworks being developed. Firstly, participants contributed to the emerging ‘Research Cities Maturity Framework’.They looked at what the component parts of local collaborations are and then subsequently articulated how they might be extrapolated into stages of maturity.
Feedback included making explicit in the framework what ‘assets’ already existed in the locality; and asking how researchers can most effectively contribute to addressing management and delivery challenges; as well as policy challenges – i.e. where evidence can contribute at different points in the ROAMEF policy cycle (Rationale, Objectives, Appraisal, Monitoring, Evaluation, Feedback).
There was also discussion of the need to give researchers more awareness of how policy involves trade-offs, and how to equip researchers, perhaps in cross-disciplinary teams with policy partners, to consider trade-offs in their policy advice.
The Research Cities maturity framework might also need to include how tensions can be addressed between the supply and demand for evidence, and how upfront conversations can take place to develop equitable partnerships. There was recognition that the goals of research and governmental organisations don’t need to be perfectly aligned, but that in developing work towards Research Cities, making explicit the goals, monitoring and incentives that apply to both evidence producers and evidence users is important.
The conversation in the room stimulated conversation about how different tools and techniques could enhance local working relationships and connections. A maturity framework was in general thought to be suited to culture change projects, and would perhaps need be supplemented by a logic model in relation to specific inputs, outputs, outcomes and impacts.
In developing a framework for what an ‘ARIs Plus’ programme could look like at a local level, a framework building on prompts from the Leeds experience was discussed. These included the dimensions of governance and senior sponsorship, a partnership working group, resource and capacity, incentivising engagement, internal networks and communication. Experiences were shared by participants working within Health Determinants Research Collaborations in local authorities and others with experiences of working between universities and local government. Publishing ARIs was agreed to be only part of a process which needs to be situated within a process including leadership, resource and time to explore opportunities for research to contribute to evidence needs.
