Our research teams monitor the state of the West Midlands, progress of regional strategies and support partners in meeting their data and evidence needs. This includes coordinating the evidence base to support the Regional Skills Partnership's work
Recent and ongoing research to support regional policy and strategy includes:
State of the Region Report 2009
Published 20th October 2009
This report brings together some of the key evidence from the State of the Region dialogues with a range of other information about the major issues facing the West Midlands. We link the themes to wider developments influencing regional policy and strategy.
We provide Excel datasets of indicators and the data can be explored in interactive maps.
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State of the region dialogues
Ongoing 2009-2010
We aim to make the evidence we produce even more relevant to policy makers' needs. By coordinating 'thematic dialogues' between decision makers and researchers, we also aim to strengthen the way in which evidence is used to inform policy.
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Measuring the scale of the challenge
Updated 29th June 2009
The headline focus of the West Midlands Economic Strategy, Connecting to Success, is closing the gap between the performance of the West Midlands economy and that of the UK as a whole. But how big is that gap? And what are the main things which influence it?
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Delivering a sustainable transport system 
Launched June 2009
The Delivering a Sustainable Transport System (DASTS) project was launched by the Department for Transport in 2008. The West Midlands Regional Transport Partnership developed a programme of work for the West Midlands. To support that work, the Observatory created a DaSTS evidence base within the Resource Catalogue.
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West Midlands economic strategy monitoring framework
Updated 9th February 2009
We developed a framework of headline and outcome indicators in 2007 in consultation with regional partners to monitor progress of the West Midlands Economic Strategy, Connecting to Success. We've since published a 2009 Annual Update Report (pdf, 1.04mb) updating the indicators and showing progress since our original baseline report was published in December 2007.
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Integrated policy modelling
We developed an economic model for use by regional and sub-regional partners to improve the quality of analysis of regional policies. The model will support planning and policy evaluation, impact analysis, and enable investigation of potential changes in the future economic structure of the West Midlands.
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Connecting spatial planning and economic development
One of the key features of the proposed Single Integrated Regional Strategy (SIRS) is that it will have to be strongly based on evidence. While the precise requirements of the SIRS are unclear, we do know that it will integrate the existing Regional Spatial Strategy and Regional Economic Strategy.
As part of our State of the Region dialogues, we're exploring how spatial planning and economic development are linked and how the evidence base might be developed to ensure those links are effective.
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West Midlands regional energy strategy monitoring report 2006
Published 28th April 2006
We were commissioned by Energy West Midlands to produce the first monitoring report for measuring progress towards the regional targets outlined in the West Midlands Energy Strategy, published in November 2004. Our report provides the first comprehensive compendium of regional energy and emissions estimates.
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