Category Archives: Hilary’s Publications, Lectures And Talks
Science And Regeneration
Science may sometimes be difficult for people in regeneration to understand; and perhaps this doesn’t always matter. But we do all need to see what science in its operation and applications has to offer. For optimal outcomes at every level dialogue between scientists and regeneration practitioners is critical.
Why is science important in regeneration? And why, if so, is it invisible?
There are many answers both these questions, but three of the most straightforward are:
* Science is a huge part of the knowledge economy, which in turn is a critical part modern western life; we have moved on from standard production to an ideas based economy.
* Science in its applications is both a ‘cause’ of and a ‘cure’ for the environmental issues which are by the day becoming more pressing.
* Science is often invisible because many of us find it incomprehensible and, in any case, it tends to be tucked away in universities, industrial laboratories, business parks and at the more daunting end of the quality media. (We won’t even think here about science and the popular press…)
Plus of course science is as incomprehensible to significant numbers of journalists and politicians as it is to many members of the general public.
Science policy
But science is not the same as science policy. The former tends (though probably less so than in the past) towards more theoretical research, even if often externally funded; the latter is about the intentional influence and impact of scientific (and technological) knowledge on our lives.
The incomprehension of many about science is unsurprising. But impressive scientific knowledge in itself is less important for regeneration strategies than is an understanding of where the application of science can take us, and how to get there. I can drive a car, and I know where I would like it to take me, but I would be hard pressed to construct one.
And science can offer not one destination but several if it is ‘driven’ well…. How about large-scale construction and investment opportunities, enhancement of the skills base, graduate retention and synergy with existing enterprise, plus the kudos of internationally significant research, for a start?
Is there a downside?
It would be foolish to suggest that all science is ‘good’. Publicly contentious work is another reason why understanding what science can do is important – the GM food and MMR vaccination debates, however well-informed or not, come to mind and are frequently confused issues for the non-specialist. But even disallowing for these sort of concerns there are still costs to the advancement of science and technology, not least environmental.
What science and technology ‘cause’ they can also however often mitigate. If we know, say, how ‘expensive’ in carbon terms a particular innovation or development is, we also usually know what to do to mitigate or turn around that cost. Planning and design, for instance, are frequently critical. to best practice.
In a regeneration proposal, has economy of energy been a major consideration? Is the infrastructure connected in ways which reduce negative environmental impact? Are the plans sustainable in all the ways, environmental, economic and at the human level, that they should be? Science of many sorts can help us towards the answers.
Moving away from traditional perspectives
Science and technology are not respectful of the public-private boundaries which have traditionally shaped regeneration. Knowledge, once that genie has emerged, cannot be put back in the bottle. Like water, it will flow wherever it meets least resistance or most encouragement.
Given the gargantuan sums of money which some science and technology require in their developmental phases and application, it is surprising that so little public attention is generally given to where Big Science facilities are located. (The Daresbury Laboratory in the North West of England is a good example of enhanced regeneration when world-class science is secured by active regional lobbying.)
It’s time to move away from the idea that all regeneration requires is a science park tucked away in a corner of our strategic plan, and we need also to think big about what it all means. For the best regeneration outcomes scientists and regeneration policy makers must to be in communication with each other all the time – even if they need an active ‘translator’ to achieve this. Neither is likely to procure the very best opportunities from the other, if no-one is talking.
A version of this article was published, as ‘The appliance of science affects us all’, in New Start magazine on 24 November 2006.
The Conference Diversity Index
Conferences involving public funds and public policy are still too often devised and conducted as though the vast majority of the population were white, male, able-bodied and middle class. The time has come to start measuring in some way the extent to which this limited approach offers the general public value for money.
This is the twenty first century. We in Britain live in a democratic and accountable society run, on the whole, by people who are serious about ‘getting it right’.
How come, then, that I find myself so frequently incensed by the line-up and arrangements for public conferences on critical matters? The answer is simple: conferences about pressing civic matters are still very largely (not exclusively) organised and presented as if the entire planet were inhabited by able-bodied white, middle class, men.
Democratic underpinnings?
There are of course many excellent conference speakers and delegates who happen to be able-bodied, white and middle class; but theirs is not the only perspective or understanding which matters. It therefore follows that policy developed largely on the basis of this perspective will probably be weak or even downright unhelpful (and the evidence of this abounds…. just choose your own example.) So check out the next conference on any matter of general public concern:
Does it have significant diversity in its speakers and and their positions? For gender? For age? For ethnicity? For influence?
Is the agenda helpful in terms of recognising and giving weight to the diverse perspectives within its given community of interest? Do the topics listed for discussion demonstrate this clearly? Do they include specific consideration of possible future action on diversity within the theme being considered?
Is it accessible to everyone? Does it offer a significant number of places for sensible prices (say, the cost of two meals, perhaps £20)? Is it near a train station on a main line (especially if it’s more than local in its remit)? Is the venue easy to navigate for those with mobility and related problems? Assuming the issues under consideration are not privileged in some specific way, will the end-point papers be published on a free, publicly accessible and openly advertised website?
Where’s the action towards inclusion?
The Fawcett Society recently calculated that, at the present rate, it will still be four hundred years before men and women are equal in terms of their influence in the corridors of power.
This is simply not good enough. Not at all. Not now, let alone in several hundred years.
I have decided therefore to take one small step for diverse-person-kind, and begin work on a Conference Diversity Index, which will be developed to indicate, however, impressionistically, just how much value and weight might be placed on various publicly funded events about matters of public concern. More diversity of involvement and experience, more value…..
I know a few conferences coming up on Merseyside which may prove to be of interest; and no doubt you know of others.
This is my website version of the article ‘Can I have a speaker that reflects the community? Too white, too male and too posh. It’s time conferences had an injection of diversity’, published in New Start magazine, 27 October 2006, p.11
No-Win Or Win-Win Gender And Babies Agenda?
Choosing if and when to have a baby has never been an easy decision, especially if both partners want to continue in employment. But the debate has shifted quite a lot in the past few years, and perhaps now a deeper understanding is emerging of what ‘work-life balance’ is really about.
Actually, of course, some folk would say it’s all-win for some, and never-win for others; but we do know, really, it’s not like that.
The question does however have to be asked, how can you get it right, if you’re a woman and a mum and a person who wants to make her way in the world?
History or Herstory?
Fact is, for the past fifty years it’s been even more complicated than for the years before then. Whatever is thought by those with shorter memories, the time from the end of World War II (1945) until the end of the sixties, and well into the seventies, was dreadful for women wanting to maintain their families and their careers.
The landmark equality legislation of the 1970’s certainly changed things for the better… but even I found myself in a situation, when ‘the family’ arrived, of having to resign my full-time post and then apply again for my job, as a part-timer. Maternity leave had never been taken by anyone at the college where I then taught, and anyway it was a mere four weeks or bust (which even after resigning was not much less than what I had, before I went back as a part-timer).
Strange then how, during WWII (I report here from the history books, not personal recollection), there was all sorts of support for ‘working women’, so it could be done when the will was there. But at that time of course, sadly, the men actually weren’t ‘there’ as well….
Improved, but still problematic
So I don’t go at all with the idea of some young women today that ‘it’s harder now than it was for our mums’ – who, it is I gather supposed, just had to work for ‘pin-money’, or else stayed at home supported by a bread-winning spouse who could earn for the family; for most of us I suspect that only happened on The Archers.
Nor of course do I believe that 1939-1945, with all its horrors, was a time when women always thrived. But classic films such as Rosie the Riveter (about a group of female engineering production workers in New York in the ’40s) demonstrate well the capability and willingness of women to take on ‘men’s jobs’ when they have to.
And nearer to home, I discovered in my own research in the 1970s that women who had entered academic science during the 1940s had a better chance of professional progression than younger ones, who had to compete with the men.
Complex judgements and issues
No, the issues now more complex than they were either when the need for skilled workers required women to take the job on, or indeed when the campaigns for basic rights (oh heady days!) were still to be won.
It’s rare for anyone today to announce their outright hostility to women – though there are many serious and shocking stories still to be told. The formal legal battles, if not the wage-related ones, have been quite largely secured. It’s beginning at last to cost those who don’t grasp equality a lot of money.
But that doesn’t resolve everything. We read daily of ‘reasons’ why women ‘should’ only have their children in a very narrow age-slot; and why they ‘must’ keep close physical contact with their babies for a considerable time. On a personal level these are harder things to deal with, than is straightforward sexist write-off. Psychological pressures can cause real personal pain; for fair-minded people sexism just causes anger.
Where’s the truth?
I don’t think there is a single truth in all this – except that no way is it ‘just’ a ‘women’s dilemma’. Whoever heard of a baby that didn’t have a dad somewhere along the line?
My recollection is that these psychological influences on decisions about having a family were always there, lurking in the scenes; but in previous decades we’ve had to concentrate on rights as such. Now young women (and their partners) have to make personal judgements, because genuine choice does at least to some extent exist.
It was never, ever, easy. But perhaps if real choices start to be made by women and men together, the climate might begin to change so that at least most folk understand and respect the dilemmas and decisions we all have to make, when we bring (or decide not to bring) babies into the world.
The expression ‘work-life balance‘ could be about to become genuinely meaningful at last.
A version of this article was first published in Diverse Liverpool: the gender issue, in March 2006, pp. 113-115.
Read more articles about Gender & Women, and see more of Hilary’s Publications, Lectures & Talks
Big Science, Technology And The New Localism
Big Science is a central part of the U.K. economy. The Knowledge Economy, with science and technology as the tangible drivers, is critical to economic success. But for many involved in regeneration Big Science remains a mystery, especially at the level of the ‘new localism’. This paper offers real examples of regeneration strategies, science policy and how science has synergy with, and impact on, economies at regional and local level.
The Golden Triangle and the Holy Grail of the Triple Helix…….
Big Science, Technology and the New Localism
Hilary Burrage
[This is a longer version of the CLES Local Work: Voice paper of February 2006, entitled Knowledge Economies and Big Science: A challenge for governance]
Knowledge-Led Regeneration, Regions, Sub-Regions & City Regions and Science Policy.
Modern science is massive. That’s why it’s often referred to as Big Science. The costs (and sometimes the rewards), the numbers of people involved, the management and resource levels and the skills required – all are very, very high. And yet… to most of us, science remains effectively invisible.
Away from the public eye
The invisibility of science is curious; it probably arises from a number of different factors:
· Big Science, like (say) public motorways, is paid for by money from very high up the funding chain. Decisions on funding are made at national (and international) level by people of whom almost no-one outside their particular sphere of influence has heard. But unlike motorways, which we can at least see, we rarely encounter Big Science directly in our daily lives. It therefore remains off our radar.
· Most of us know very little about what science is ‘for’ and how it works. The numbers of school children studying science in their later, elective years is still falling, as are numbers of degree students. We are not therefore conscious of the ways in which science gives rise to things with which we are familiar, from shampoo to plastics to machines.
· Whilst information technology and health are of interest to many people, they do not see these matters as ‘scientific’. (Nor, incidentally, do many practitioners in the health and IT fields themselves see this connection very clearly.)
· Whether science and science-related practitioners see themselves as having a linked core interest or not, they nonetheless usually believe that their work has little or nothing to do with the wider worlds of public involvement and politics. There may be issues arising from science and technology (which I shall refer to from now on as SciTech) for others to address around economics or ethics, but what happens in the labs is the main concern – and this is observed by very few.
· Science is likewise not a vote-catcher. It is unusual for the electorate to invest much time and energy pursuing issues around this theme; which means that in general neither the media nor politicians spend much time considering it either.
Returning then to the comparison with motorways, both may be very expensive, but Big Science is almost always off limits for the public at large – it is often located within universities or on special campuses of some sort, very much less visible than a large road.
Does Big Science need to be visible?
But why should invisibility matter? After all, we may well not think about science very much, but every region of the United Kingdom has its own science and technology parks, where scientists and technologists rub shoulders with business and commercial people. These parks may not be in our thoughts a great deal, but they create jobs and inward investment and are often key parts of regeneration strategies.
In general we do not see the vaccine research laboratories, the synchrotrons, or the materials science analysts at work. But so what if they’re not ‘visible’? Does it really matter?
Answers to this question can be given at a number of levels; but in all cases the answer is Yes, invisibility does indeed matter.
The invisibility of Big Science reduces:
· public interest and involvement;
· the number of young people who will have an interest in SciTech as a career;
· engagement with industry and business;
· influence in matters of planning and infrastructure;
· opportunities to procure regeneration, at both practical and strategic levels.
Some of the follow-on repercussions of this invisibility are obvious; others are less so.
And the consequences are likewise different for different terrains. The ‘hothouse’ of the Golden Triangle [roughly, that area covering London, Oxbridge and the M4 / 5 corridors] is probably less directly vulnerable than, say, a Science Park in Northern England.
But it is at least possible that every part of the high level Knowledge Economy is disadvantaged by the inequity and uneven distribution of synergies between ‘hothouse’ and more isolated facilities. The former is becoming stressed, the latter need more support and development of capacity.
The Triple Helix of Innovation
It is now accepted that it is the synthesis of Universities, Industry and Government – the ‘Triple Helix’ – which brings about serious SciTech innovation. This Triple Helix, as we shall see, is in effect the Holy Grail to a vibrant knowledge-led twenty first century economy.
The world wide web may keep researchers and others in touch, but there is nothing like direct involvement from the big investment players to secure scientific progress in a given location. In other words, ad hoc development of SciTech facilities will take a local economy so far, but not far enough. Only strategic planning on a grand scale, and by with all parties working together, will however produce the sort of results which make a significant difference. And that means involvement at the highest levels of decision-making.
A corollary of this scenario is that people at all points on the decision-making ‘chain’ need to be aware of the complexities of SciTech. Again, this is more likely to be the case in the Golden Triangle, than in our off-the-map Northern Science Park. When a lot of local people are employed in SciTech jobs at the highest levels, as in the Golden Triangle, awareness of science and technology will be far greater than when this is not the case. Dispersed discreet locations without significant business links are on their own unlikely to change the local business or political perspective about what is important. – what does this mean for us and our knowledge economies?
The Daresbury Connection
A case in point here is the Daresbury Laboratory near Warrington, in the North West of England. This establishment, much of the work of which is as a world leader in the field of high energy physics, had been in existence for some decades, collaborating with the University of Liverpool and several other higher education and research laboratories.
By the mid-nineteen nineties, however, Daresbury had become something of an island unto itself, still conducting worthy international research but effectively disconnected from its locality, the local business / industrial base, and, critically, the political and administrative decision-making process.
The result of this disconnection was that the warning flags were not hoisted around the North West when the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, based in the Golden Triangle, decided to bid against Daresbury to the CCLRC (Central Council of the Laboratories of the Research Councils) to construct and operate DIAMOND, the planned third generation synchrotron – an intense light source which propels sub-atomic particles at extraordinary speeds in order to effect particle collisions for academic research and industrial / medical purposes.
By the approach of the Millennium it was becoming clear that Daresbury’s initial understanding about where the new light source would be placed were at best optimistic, although by then numbers of local and national politicians and others had also become involved in Daresbury’s attempt to secure the research funds which it had assumed were coming to the North West.
Similarly, and too late in the day, the North West Development Agency recognised that this was not simply a matter of ruffled feathers in academia, bur rather a matter of serious consequence for the whole of the region. Conferences were held, industrial and business liaisons established, plans proposed for collaboration with a number of the North West’s leading universities and hospitals – from which was later to be developed a proposal for a much more broadly-based programme of academic and applied science (CASIM). It was however too late to secure DIAMOND, and the contract went to the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, taking with it some of Daresbury’s most highly skilled technicians.
An emerging perception of how Big Science fits the national economy.
It slowly transpired, however, that all was not lost when Daresbury had to concede DIAMOND (and thus much of its future funding) to Rutherford Appleton. The North West campaign to retain support for the Laboratory had by then gained considerable momentum. Regeneration and strategic planners across the region had begun to realise that here was a facility which no-one could afford to see as an ivory tower. The science and technology might be extremely complex, but it was not simply a toy for boffins; it was potentially an enormous asset to the North West region and beyond. (And besides, for many local people, the campaign had become a matter of civic pride – a factor which politicians and planners ignore at their peril!)
Interestingly, the collapse of Daresbury’s expectations at this time also proved to be a watershed for national governmental understandings of the interaction between Big Science and the economy, nationally and regionally. The model in use at the time of the DIAMOND decision was essentially that of straightforward competition.
It had hitherto been accepted – though perhaps largely on face-value – that the physical location of Big Science facilities should be brokered only on the basis of the preferences of direct partners and funders (the Wellcome Foundation, a massive funding body, was particularly vociferous about supporting only Rutherford Appleton – already, through long-standing connections between key Oxbridge players, a Wellcome partner in a number of activities).
Media outcry
The North West media outcry about losing DIAMOND also coincided with the beginnings of a repositioning nationally about how Big Science was to be taken forward. It was slowly dawning on national decision-makers that, whilst the quality of the science itself had to be (by a very long way) the lead criterion for the allocation of funding at this level, the project evaluation playing field was nonetheless not entirely even.
For instance, whilst it might perhaps be valid to suggest that more immediate business and industrial benefit might accrue from investment in the South East, the ultimate benefit of funding to the North West might be greater in terms of its impact on the regional economy.
Similarly, scientists of the very highest order might in general have been found in greater numbers in the Golden Triangle, this was not an excuse for failing to invest in research and development in the universities of the North West. As has subsequently been demonstrated, top scientists are willing in significant numbers to follow the most challenging science, wherever it is located – especially if the costs of housing etc are lower, as well.
And so we come to the present day story of Daresbury Laboratory. Daresbury has attracted a number of new and very senior staff to support outstanding colleagues based in North West universities, it has connected with business, industrial, strategic and political interests throughout the region, and it has established a fast-growing SciTech park led by major NW companies. Not every part of CASIM proved to be deliverable (the medical applications especially proved difficult, perhaps of the way that hospital-based research is supported); but Daresbury most importantly has secured the Fourth Generation Light Source programme, which will make it the world leader in this field.
The lessons of Daresbury
The Daresbury saga is salutary in a number of respects.
First, it demonstrates the increasingly competitive nature of SciTech, and especially Big Science, in modern economies.
Second, it shows that all parts of the Triple Helix – collaboration between universities, industries and the state – are essential in order to secure the sort of funding required for present day Big Science programmes.
And third, it illustrates very well the need for scientists, politicians and other public and private sector decision-makers at regional and sub-regional / local levels to remain alert, if they are to ensure adequate funding and other strategic support for prestigious and regenerationally effective SciTech enterprises.
There are therefore important lessons to be learned at regional and sub-regional levels.
Regionalism and the New Localism
One of the most defining aspects of Big Science is its internationalism. In the U.K. almost all Big Science projects will have a European aspect, probably under one of the European Union Frameworks for Science (we are currently on our 6th, and the 7th is under negotiation); and most projects will also be attached in some respects to laboratories such as, for instance, those at M.I.T. or CalTech in the United States.
This huge span of expertise and personnel arises largely organically in the first instance. Most serious scientists and technologists barely recognise national boundaries in their academic and applied work. Venture capital and the very high level knowledge economy have an operational syntax all of their own.
These facts of scientific life put notions of the ‘New Localism’ and of City Regions in a different light. They are, to be blunt, too small as areas and populations on their own to be realistic players in the battle for Big Science.
To illustrate this, the European Union recognises a number of population bases – NUTS, or Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics – of which the most commonly used in NUTS 1, or areas containing 3 – 7 million people. NUTS 1 areas are the size of major administrative units in most European countries; in fact, about the size of each of the English regions, and of Scotland and Wales respectively. City Regions are usually NUTS 2 size – 0.8 – 3 million people, and outside capital cities do not generally in most of Europe have autonomous governance.
Given that the annual budget of connected major Big Science programmes can approach that of the government of a small European country it is obviously not possible for them to operate at, say, the city region level . They require massive financial backing in terms of regional infrastructural support and they require equally massive buy-in from business and industry. And of course they need very significant numbers of available in-house expertise from local universities and other research institutions.
No non-capital town or city on its own is likely to be able to provide the levels of support required to secure significant Big Science onto its patch. The North West Development Agency and / or the Northern Way, for instance, can take full part as lead players; individual sub-regional cities, however otherwise important, can only be bit players on the Big Science stage.
The challenge for the New Localism
The message of Big Science is not entirely encouraging for those who eschew regionalism and seek preeminence for city-regions – not least because in reality most major cities simply don’t have the actual physical space, let alone the budget, to secure Big Science for themselves alone.
This is one scenario where, whatever applies elsewhere, only a shared and regional approach, or more, will do. For the U.K. at least this means that, if Big Science growth is to occur outside the Golden Triangle, the Holy Grail of the Triple Helix must be pursued by everyone, regardless of inter-city or inter-university rivalries or of otherwise competing interests between industries and businesses.
National Government must develop a policy on regional science, and regions and sub-regions must likewise respond to the opportunities such a policy would bring.
Read more about Knowledge-Led Regeneration, Regions, Sub-Regions & City Regions and Science Policy.
HOPES Millennium Commission Presentation (London, 22 September 2000)
HOPES: The Hope Street Association (Liverpool) was honoured by being invited in September 2000 to give the ‘community festival’ perspective at a national meeting in London attended by the Secretary of State for Culture, Chris Smith M.P., the Millennium Commissioners and their special guests. The paper which follows was presented on this occasion by HOPES Hon. Chair, Hilary Burrage.
HOPES: The Hope Street Association
Presentation to the Secretary of State for Culture, the Rt Hon Chris Smith MP, and the Millennium Commission
London, 22 September 2000
Maintaining the Momentum of Change: Making connections – building communities
THE HOPE STREET MILLENNIUM FESTIVAL (LIVERPOOL)
The Liverpool Hope Street Millennium Public Arts Route
Background
HOPES: The Hope Street Association came into being in 1994/5 as a result of the on-going campaign to support Liverpool’s Everyman and Playhouse Theatres and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, all of which were then under serious threat of financial calamity. Since 1991/2 The Campaign to Promote the Arts on Merseyside (CAMPAM – now amalgamated with HOPES) had proclaimed of these vital elements of Liverpool’s cultural life that ‘once lost, we will not get them back’.
The Hope Street Quarter is an area at the downtown edge of Liverpool City Centre which covers approximately a square kilometre. It is probably unique in the density of civic resources it offers, with an amazing number of cultural and educational institutions lined along and on either side of Hope Street itself.
Almost all of these institutions are members or partners of HOPES, including both Cathedrals and both Universities, several colleges and training centres in the area, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra / Hall, and the Everyman and Unity Theatres. Other HOPES members importantly include local traders, professional businesses, residents and private individuals.
HOPES’ Aims
From the very beginning, HOPES had a number of stated aims:
– to establish the area around Hope Street as a formal Quarter, thereby gaining for it and its constituent parts serious recognition as a springboard for appropriate, managed development;
– to establish formal liaison with decision-makers in the City of Liverpool in order to promote and develop the many aspects of Hope Street Quarter which put together would offer a striking synergy for renaissance of the area and the city as a whole;
– to establish a special identity as a not-for-profit body with links with national and other local bodies involved in regeneration and social entrepreneurship;
– to gain Millennium Commission recognition and support, especially for celebratory activities which brought together members of the local community and a wide range of artists and other professionals in the area.
It can be said in general terms that the year 2000 has seen a significant measure of success in all four of these objectives, and not least, in the first three cases, because of the impetus which Festival support from the Millennium Commission has provided.
Moving towards the Hope Street Millennium Festival
Hope Street’s Festival has been focused, although not exclusively, on the Midsummer period. We began earlier in the year with some ‘taster’ small concerts and children’s workshops in local community venues, and we will continue with these, and with other educational and arts projects, until the end of the year, and beyond. But the main focus has been Midsummer, following from a practice of running Midsummer Festivals which began in 1977, with the celebration of HM Queen’s Silver Jubilee and a pageant on Hope Street arising from Malcolm Arnold’s work, The Valley and the Hill. On that first occasion some 17,000 school children were involved, but from this grew a number of other Hope Street Midsummer Festivals which might be compared with, say, early Three Choirs Festivals in terms of content and delivery.
By the mid-1980s, however, this series of festivals had come to an end, and the first, tentative, festival of the current series was organised by the Hope Street Association in 1996. This first, modest venture was over one weekend only, but, encouraged by the interest it engendered, we have since developed annual programmes over longer periods, with the Millennium Midsummer Festival extending over the entire month of June.
Preparations for the Hope Street Millennium Festival have their roots in the very first decisions made by HOPES. We agreed at a well-attended public meeting to make an application to the Millennium Commission for a significant capital award to support the physical regeneration of the Hope Street Quarter – a bid, put together entirely on a volunteer / pro-bono basis, which was unsuccessful but which also drew considerable attention to the Quarter at a time when we were also seeking (ultimately successfully) to have the Quarter so designated by the city authorities. Several early rejections of economic development and arts-related bids, however, left us if anything more determined to succeed in a significant bid which would highlight the unique and exciting features of our Quarter. And so further work and public consultation led to the successful Millennium Festival Award which has now been delivered and employed with very real effect.
Facing the challenges
The Hope Street Association has however been seriously challenged in delivering such a festival. HOPES has almost no direct income (other than modest membership fees and occasional individual donations); but it does receive significant in-kind support from many sources, the most sustained of which has been provision of an office and facilities by the Liverpool Business School and, latterly, by the Liverpool Architecture and Design Trust. This generous support is matched by ‘staff’ who are young graduates on management-training placements from our Universities (mostly the Language Learning Centre of the University of Liverpool).
These young people are mentored and supervised by HOPES’s Chair, a semi-retired lecturer who has hands-on involvement in the day-to-day running of the organisation. Without the enthusiasm and energy of HOPES’s ‘staff’ trainees the close community links and many activities of the Association and its Festival would not be possible – young people bring their own very valuable momentum to events!
Participating in the Hope Street Millennium Festival
A key aim of HOPES’ approach to the Millennium Festival has been community participation at every level. Our objective has been to deliver artistic and educational activities using highly-skilled professionals working with local people who have a close knowledge of the community – thereby, we hope, breaking down possible psychological and other barriers to collaboration in the renaissance of the Hope Street Quarter and helping where we can to bring about also the longed-for renaissance of Liverpool.
Over many months the following outline programme for the Hope Street Millennium Festival developed and has now been delivered:
Involvement of Merseyside schools in the Festival,, especially through
– an extended Banners project led by an Egyptian teacher, Nivien Mahmoud, who has come with her family to Liverpool whilst her husband studies at the University
– invitations to schools to involve their students in the now-established annual Hotfoot on Hope Street Midsummer concert at Philharmonic Hall
– poetry and arts / science ‘creativity’ projects led by HOPES graduate trainee Development Officer, Jo Doyle, with volunteer expert advice and support
Involvement of top-level artists and educationalists such as players from the Royal Liverpool Orchestra in a number of activities such as
– the Gala Midsummer Hotfoot on Hope Street concert at Philharmonic Hall, in which talented young amateur instrumentalists and singers performed music ranging from Peter and the Wolf to Beatles arrangements alongside players RLPO professionals
– informal chamber concerts by Live-A-Music, a group of RLPO players, at venues like St Bride’s Church, Toxteth (at the invitation of the Vicar) and Liverpool Town Hall (at the invitation, on BBC Music Live Day, of the Lord Mayor)
– music workshops for children (and their parents) run alongside these concerts by another Live-A-Music / RLPO player, Richard Gordon-Smith (also HOPES’ Composer-in-Residence) at community venues such as St Bride’s and The Blackie
– an emphasis on music by ‘minority’ composers and performers, eg: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (researched by Live-A-Music’s Director, Martin Anthony (Tony) Burrage) and the Saurang Orchestra, initiated by Surinder Sandhu, which brings together professional players from the Indian, Western and Jazz traditions – and which this time included performance of the international Ode to Joy, supported by Liverpool City Council Arts Unit and David Ellwand of Summer Music
– the creation overall of 60+ engagements in the city for professional performers, as well as encouragement for new composers via a competition offering opportunities for winning entries to be performed by a professional group of musicians
Involvement of the wider local and Merseyside community through
– widespread media coverage, local leafleting / newsletters, consultation meetings etc
– a longer-term commitment to establish a Hope Street Millennium Public Arts Route celebrating the activities of all who have been involved in our Millennium Festival
– maintaining contacts in local communities through friends and colleagues made whilst HOPES provided administrative support for the 1998 Liverpool Windrush activities (at the initial suggestion of Jeffrey Morris of BBC Television)
– development of an on-going website
– a dazzling pre-Launch performance at the Metropolitan (RC) Cathedral by Sicilian flag-throwers, arranged by Mrs Nunzia Bertali, Italian consul for Merseyside
– engagement of local people to provide voluntary advice and assistance in the development, marketing and promotion of all the Festival activities, through an informal network of Festival Committee members and helpers – including Arthur Bowling, a Millennium Fellow who was introduced to HOPES by the Commission
– concerts and free workshops over several months which had marketing campaigns targeted particularly at local communities around Hope Street, for which, in addition to wider promotional support from the RLPS, we delivered leaflets door-to-door
– producing and displaying the HOPES Banners all along Hope Street for the Midsummer weekend, in a collaboration with schools, Liverpool University Student Guild and their Organiser Emily Coombes, the Youth Service, the Probation Service (who provided community service probationers to actually mount the banners) – and, crucially, the owners of all the stretches of iron railing along the street
– a ‘Family Fun Day’ on Sunday 18 June, when we collaborated with the Dingle SALE (Southern Area Local Enterprise), the Police, Liverpool John Moores University and other authorities to close a stretch of Hope Street and offer free family entertainment (Brownies and local dance groups, young popular musicians, balloons, craft and activity stalls in the John Moores University car park on the corner of Hope Street, etc.) which many people enjoyed – in brilliant sunshine!
Involvement of HOPES members, regeneration professionals and other interested practitioners, students and citizens through
– displays, newspaper articles and radio / TV interviews about the Festival and regeneration of the Quarter
– a formal Festival Launch when Angela Heslop, Arts Editor of Radio Merseyside, gave the Annual HOPES State of the Arts on Merseyside address
– displays, newspaper articles and radio / TV interviews about the Festival etc
– a HOPES Millennium Gala Dinner, attended by Guests of Honour The Lord Mayor of Liverpool, Mrs Louise Ellman MP for Liverpool Riverside, Councillor Mike Storey as Leader of Liverpool City Council, and David Scougall, a Director of the British Urban Regeneration Association, as speaker, with many other significant figures in Liverpool’s regeneration alongside other members and supporters of HOPES
– liaison with bodies such as the Musicians’ Union and others, in an informal network
– a National Conference, Art at the Heart: The Role of Established Cultural Quarters in City Renaissance, which had as Keynote Speaker Chris Brown of the Urban Task Force, as well as a wide range of other development practitioners and academics
– production after this conference of a publication, The Hope Street Papers, which contains professional presentations from actual speakers and others, as well as responses from members of the public who attended the conference as participants.
HOPES’ current position
Whilst HOPES remains an organisation dependent almost entirely on volunteer activity and support, with many professionals and members of the community giving their services freely, our position has shifted very positively during our Millennium Festival year. Significant factors in this change include
– strengthening of community links, eg, through collaboration with Dingle SALE, the St Bride’s (Canning / Toxteth) community and the University of Liverpool Students’ Guild community volunteers
– greater involvement with the Universities and Colleges (eg: invitations to work with fifth year Architecture students at Liverpool and LJMU, to perform a community chamber concert at Liverpool Art School, to collaborate with the University of Liverpool and Liverpool Institute for Performing Art in a science theatre proposal, and to collaborate with music students at Liverpool Hope University College)
– agreement from the Charity Commission that HOPES can register in the near future as an arts, educational and conservation etc charity, expressly to benefit the City of Liverpool and the local community
– much strengthened links with the British Urban Regeneration Association, the North-West Regional Development Agency, the NW Arts Board, the Liverpool Architecture and Design Trust , Liverpool Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Local Agenda 21, Aurora, the Musicians’ Union and other significant organisations
– establishing working contact with the London-based School for Social Entrepreneurs, especially since this year our graduate trainee Development Officer, Jo Doyle, has at HOPES’ initial suggestion been studying there; she is currently developing a HOPES programme which will bring together professional musicians (eg: from the RLPO / Live-A-Music) and community-based practitioners to engage young popular musicians in a New Deal scheme addressing social exclusion
– development of a formal relationship with the City of Liverpool’s Youth (Life Long Learning) Service, which has agreed to offer financial support for Jo Doyle’s project
– making professional musical connections with the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Society (based in Croydon, where he lived) and members of the Saurang Orchestra (who visit Liverpool to play in it from India and the United States) – so providing proof positive that ‘classical’ music is not the preserve simply of a certain type of person
– increasingly strong connections with the innovative public-private partnership city-centre development agency, Liverpool Vision, and with the City of Liverpool’s new Regeneration Directorate (who very helpfully introduced us to the Youth Service)
– establishing as a priority consideration of mechanisms for graduate retention in Liverpool, beyond simply the post-graduate management training phase
– achieving the prime objective of the Association, which is to establish the need for acknowledgement and renaissance of the Hope Street Quarter – this was recently accomplished after submissions to and high-level discussions with the City’s Unitary Development Plan office and then with the new City Centre Development Company, Liverpool Vision, which in July revised its strategy to include Hope Street Quarter as a primary location for attention, having initially not done so at all.
The advantage of Millennium Funding
For all these developments the advantage of Festival funding from the Millennium Commission has been enormous. It allowed us to plan a Festival in confidence, knowing that we could pay at least essential bills; and, most importantly, it gave us credibility and a new and higher profile. That’s worth more than almost anything else.
Cultural Leadership And Vision In Cities
When and how does a Big Town become a City? And, just as importantly, how does a Great City ensure it will never seem to be just a Very Big Town?
What part does cultural leadership and vision play in this transition? We take a look at Liverpool…
Imagine all the people – and all the things they’d do….
Cities are centres of communication, learning and complex commercial enterprises; …. they focus and condense physical, intellectual and creative energy. They are places of hugely diversified activities and functions: exhibitions and demonstrations, bars and cathedrals, shops and opera houses. I love their combination of ages, races, cultures and activities…
Richard Rogers Cities for a small planet (Faber, 1997, p.15)
When and how does a Big Town become a City? And, just as importantly, how does a Great City ensure it will never seem to be just a Very Big Town?
Doubtless we all have our first-off answers to this slightly strange question; but at base we would probably agree it’s not simply Size that matters. Quality rather than just Quantity is what counts in the metropolis status stakes.
So what does lie at the heart of a city, especially a great one such as Liverpool? What exactly does define its soul?
For me, and I suspect for many others as they ponder such questions at this pivotal point in Liverpool’s development, the critical aspect of our city’s renaissance must be a focus on what is most creative: both what we already have, and what we can forge for the future.
But this is in no way just a plea in disguise for ‘more arts funding’. Rather, I want to propose that Creativity in the City be seen as the critical factor which defines us and holds more promise than anything else for what Liverpool could become.
Thus, the real challenge is to shape and nurture a vision of our future which engages the entire creative process, the arts, the sciences, the full spectrum of the intellectual infrastructure and more…… For there is also a Plus Factor in all this to which we shall return and which we neglect at our peril.
What a modern, thriving, thrusting city needs more than almost anything else is continual recharging and renewal, a culture which challenges what is already known and done – however splendid that culture may be historically.
A city which delivers well the known and acknowledged needs of its citizens will also be one which looks to produce creative synergy with sometimes unanticipated outcomes. There can be no standing still in the search for excellence in the city.
So, to formalise the initial proposition, a Great City is one which
¨ does not just celebrate its past, but works hard to create it own future;
¨ does not simply curate its history and acknowledged culture, but seeks always to support the living arts and to ensure that benefit and creative process evolve from them;
¨ does not offer handed-down knowledge alone for its citizens, but strives ceaselessly to promote and engage the processes of learning and discovery which produce new understandings and insights across the spectrum of intellectual and creative endeavour.
Put thus, we see that Liverpool, more than many other cities, is well-blessed. We have in our heartlands an abundance of internationally recognised organisations and institutions which seek insofar as their resources and vision currently permit to deliver just the requirements listed above. The fight to ‘save’ our theatres and world-class symphony orchestra has been long and hard but, after almost decades of uncertainty, it seems we may indeed have won. Our universities and colleges permit comparison with many others, and are in significant respects outstanding. Our architecture and cathedrals are world renown.
But this inventory alone is not enough. The Great City demands more of itself than satisfactory audits of institutions, however important. Great Cities engage and nurture the best creative practitioners that can be had, put together in organisations which reciprocally appreciate and enhance the skills and traditions which are thereby brought together. Great cities value their indigenous artists and intellectuals but also welcome to their lead organisations both students and distinguished visiting practitioners who will inform and challenge current beliefs and thinking. And so through these same organisations Great Cities facilitate and even thrust upon us thriving collectives of artists, scientists, intellectuals, power elites of all sorts who can and will not accept on our behalf that which is routine or can be taken for granted.
A city’s creativity must not however remain solely civic. For it to mean anything it has also to be communal. The synergy of the city’s formal creative enclaves must be engaged and by mutual consent brought to bear on the lives of the people. This is the Plus Factor to which reference was made earlier.…..
And here lies the fundamental challenge for Liverpool at the beginning of the new Millennium.
Our city, Great City though it is already in many ways, is also a fragile, vulnerable city which is only now repositioning itself after many years of decline. The poverty of experience and expectation of many of those who have grown up and live in this city is part of the urban tragedy of our times. For too many here, Liverpool is the only place they know, the small-community-defined comfort zone from which they must collectively emerge if they are to demand the standards which those with wider and more privileged experience already expect. For too many of our citizens, impoverished both materially and ‘culturally’ through accident of time and place, the leap to acceptance and engagement in creativity in its fullest sense is a step to ‘high culture’ too far.
It would be very serious act of decontextualisation and of course entirely improper to suggest that perhaps there are communities in Liverpool ‘suffering’ from a ‘cultural deprivation’ which somehow diminishes civic pride or reduces the people’s determination to see their city great again. I hope therefore that I can avoid any charge of cultural / intellectual imperialism in pointing to a number of what I see as significant discongruities in the cultural fabric of this city – discongruities which I believe must be recognised and addressed by anyone who seeks to offer Liverpool civic (and therefore cultural) leadership.
But significant discongruities there are, disconnections of understanding between civic excellence in the cultural / intellectual infrastructure and socio-economic well-being, or between artistic / creative engagement and personal fulfilment. For instance, like parents everywhere, many here regardless of their own background would dearly wish for their own children to achieve success in the formal education system; yet these same people often express considerable antagonism towards the students who live in flats and bedsits in their midst and who thereby help to keep local shops and businesses viable – and who as graduates could with the right persuasion stay on in our city and help to revitalise it.
Likewise, many would see the flagship arts organisations of our city as indispensable elements of our civic identity – yet few expect to patronise these same bodies personally. And how many people in Liverpool know that the eponymous University has to its credit impressive numbers of Nobel Laureats? Indeed, how many people know anything much at all about what goes on in the research institutions of our city’s universities, or anything about the significance of this research in the regional economy or indeed on the world scene?
And so we could go on; for there are, to put it starkly, parts of our local communities where to ask even these questions would be to understate massively the alienation from mainstream understandings of culture and creativity. There is a palpable disinclination amongst too many of our young people beyond a certain age to lose their ‘cool’, to allow themselves to become engaged, let alone excited, by positive, imaginative and exciting ideas and activities. There is a fear by those in some parts of our communities that any bending towards the mainstream will result in cultural engulfment, that others do not respect or understand their particular traditions and beliefs. Above all, there is sometimes still apathy and an unwillingness to trust in a more accepting and better future.
This then is the true challenge which now faces the Great City of Liverpool.
Our civic leaders of the future will need as an urgent priority to deliver a cultural and creative concordat, a bringing together of traditions and modes of understanding which allow the many rather than just the few to translate hope into action – and this I believe can be achieved only through the pursuit of excellence, the engagement of the very best of what is creative in all the fields of endeavour we have considered.
We need architects and sculptors who regain the public sphere for community and performance; actors, artists and musicians who draw on their many cultural traditions to bring people together and enhance their lives; teachers who capture the imagination and ambition of their charges; community workers and volunteers whose enthusiasms, local knowledge and skills are welcomed and engaged by the civic authorities; research workers and academics who build on, and see the local economic benefits which may accrue from, the distinguished record of our institutions of higher learning.
It will be a task of breathtaking proportion to sustain in their own right, and simultaneously to bring together, the historically disempowered communities of our city and the hitherto so-called ‘elitist’ cultural institutions which history has endowed to us.
It cannot be said too clearly there are many already on all ‘sides’ who seek excellence without compromise or fear, who want and will for the city a common understanding alongside outstanding achievement across the spectrum of artistic and intellectual endeavour. But individuals of goodwill can reach only so far on their own. Cultural nostalgia, lack of resources (human, material and civic), entrenched, sometimes limited bureaucracies, the inertia of years of low expectations, cannot be overcome by individual goodwill alone. All these factors are real and enormous barriers to progress.
The challenge for Liverpool’s first Elected Mayor will be to achieve a very fine balance in pursuing world-class excellence for our city across the artistic / generically intellectual board, whilst also seeking to achieve maximum creative community synergy and engagement and maintaining personal political credibility – a tall order indeed, but one which I believe those in our amazing, deeply culturally blessed, Great City will support and embrace.
(Chapter in) Manifesto for a New Liverpool, 2000 (published by Aurora, The University of Liverpool and Space)
by
Hilary Burrage
Chair, HOPES: The Hope Street Association
Cultural Tourism as a Catalyst for Renaissance (Arts-Based Community Development)
Arts-Based Community Development (ABCD) is the approach adopted by HOPES: The Hope Street Association, Liverpool, in working with partners to enhance the renaissance of this important cultural quarter. But how does this link with the more established approach of ‘cultural tourism’?
The Mersey Partnership Cultural Impact Conference
Wednesday 31 July 2002, Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts
Cultural Tourism as a Catalyst for Renaissance
This brief presentation will look at some of the things which I hope perhaps represent best practice in local Arts-Based Community Action & Development (ABCA /D) and then examine a number of threads which may lead us to consider the challenges and opportunities of such activity.
Examples of HOPES’ community-based work¨
HOPES has organised midsummer events every year since 1996, including an annual concert at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall which includes adult amateur performers, young people / students, and schoolchildren, all working alongside professional musicians engaged from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
¨ In 2000 the year-long Hope Street Millennium Festival included almost 20 different events – concerts, exhibitions, drama, debates, a civic dinner, children’s banners and street activities – and was selected by the Millennium Commission from thousands of festivals across the country to be featured nationally.
¨ HOPES was invited to help initiate, and then provided behind-the-scenes administrative support for, the 1998 Liverpool BBC Windrush events which involved many groups from the communities of the inner-city. This was an extremely valuable opportunity to work with others to a common end, and has enabled the development of many enduring partnerships.
¨ HOPES has a Composer-in-Residence, Richard Gordon-Smith, whose large-scale orchestral work has been recorded by RLPO-Live for a commercial CD, with sponsorship, support and, in one instance, commissioning from HOPES.
¨ HOPES has organised and led a number of ‘expert’ conferences, to which local people were also invited, on subjects such as Art at the Heart: The Role of Cultural Quarters in City Renaissance and Nurturing the Best (on high-level graduate retention).
¨ HOPES sees ‘culture’ as being a broad concept, including all aspects of understandings and intellectual capital; we are very active in supporting the University of Liverpool and others in seeking to have a number of Big Science projects (eg: CASIM) located in the sub-region.
¨ HOPES has for some years supported the professional chamber ensemble Live-A-Music in its very accessible early evening concerts, and concurrent kids’ (free) workshops run by trained professional musicians, usually held in local churches and similar venues. (NB: Live-A-Music players also seek to locate, edit and perform ‘classical’ music by women and black composers as well as that by the renown ‘greats’ of the chamber music world.)
¨ HOPES seeks to involve young graduate trainees in all activities and we were able to support one such young person through a year at the School for Social Entrepreneurs in London, of which she is now a Fellow. Other past trainees now have very high-flying jobs.
¨ HOPES has gained formal recognition for Hope Street Quarter as a unique strategic area for engagement in Liverpool’s renaissance. We have held a large number of community meetings and consultations – eg: exhibiting models of possible ways forward at informal social events – and have been responsible for both the formal designation by the City Council of the Hope Street Quarter, and for the identification by the city centre partnership development company, Liverpool Vision, of Hope Street Quarter as a key development area.
¨ HOPES was central in supporting a group of Indian classical musicians who came together with RLPO musicians to form the Saurang Orchestra for a series of new-genre concerts in the Philharmonic Hall and other local venues.
¨ HOPES is very involved with others in the city in looking at ways to promote enterprise, conventional, cultural and social, as an aim for Liverpool’s 800th anniversary, in 2007.
¨ HOPES and Live-A-Music have just completed KOOL STREET, a six-month project supported by the National Foundation for Youth Music with Richard Gordon-Smith, resulting in a performance at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall by children from local secondary, special and primary schools of a five-part musical composition about their lives in Liverpool.
¨ HOPES has been at the forefront of local ventures such as the ‘reclaiming’ for the community and visitors of St James’ Garden and Cemetery alongside the Anglican Cathedral, in partnership with the Conservation Foundation, the City and others.
¨ Live-A-Music (with support from HOPES) also recently gave a free Midsummer Morning concert in aid of the Sefton Park Palm House appeal – to which 1,200 people turned up!.
¨ HOPES is a registered charity with a board of Trustees elected from an open membership, and much of our work is carried out as volunteers or as employment training opportunities for young graduates and others in the community.
Why mostly ARTS-based?
Liverpool is blessed with a large number of highly accomplished and significant arts organisations and artists. HOPES: The Hope Street Association (please see the HOPES Membership form attached for details) arose in the mid-1990s from CAMPAM, the Campaign to Promote the Arts in Merseyside (of which I was also Chair), a vocal lobby which worked hard to ensure that Liverpool’s outstanding performing arts organisations survived a very lean time. Our slogan then was ‘Once lost we will not get it back’.
The aim of HOPES is, however, more forward looking and pro-active now that our civic cultural assets have begun to be recognised for the ‘jewels in the crown’ which they are. HOPES acknowledges that cultural assets of all sorts – from architecture to world-class science and all things between – are critical for the successful renaissance of our city; and many of these rich assets lie and / or operate within the Hope Street Quarter.
We also believe that one way in which those who ‘have’ and those who perhaps have less can come together is through the arts, and especially the performing arts. Much of HOPES’ community-based activity is therefore predicated on bringing together members of the local community and artists of the highest calibre who have also come to live and work in the area.
Everyone can bring something to the arts
The parallels here with sport are evident, but should nonetheless be articulated: The arts and sport are visible and accessible to all. It may be difficult for a child in the inner-city to perceive what, say, lawyers or research scientists actually do; but everyone, given the opportunity, can observe and understand what musicians, gymnasts, painters, footballers or actors do. Indeed, Liverpool has many examples of arts and sports performers at the highest levels who came to their skills through being given opportunities to see (and / or hear) for themselves what is possible.
Likewise, in these activities everyone can become equal. HOPES seeks to involve its artist colleagues (especially musicians from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, through Live-A-Music) in activities such as ‘community’ orchestras or small-scale concerts and children’s workshops in which everyone, adults and children, skilled and less skilled, is made welcome. For instance, all HOPES Festival Orchestra members wear special T-shirts (this year sponsored by The Mersey Partnership); and after both formal and community concerts everyone, performers, audience and children alike, is invited to stay for free light refreshments. We also host free celebratory events and entertainments to which everyone who has indicated an interest (people who work, study, live in or visit Hope Street Quarter) is invited, such as our post-New Year parties at the Everyman Bistro.
We aim to use the arts to involve and bring together people from across all the communities in and around our Quarter, and to benefit from the synergies which thereby arise.
Challenges and opportunities in Arts Based Community Action / Development
No-one has ‘all the answers’ to issues of this sort, but perhaps we can at least attempt to identify some of them and offer possible initial answers:
Question: How does ABCA/D link with conventional culture and tourism?
Possible Answer: It is the ‘continuity factor’ which allows large-scale and spectacular programmes to embed (and / or develop) over time in the local community. It also facilitates genuine and new local capacity building which will enhance any more formal programmes, offering a sort of ‘social glue’. It is essential to encourage the synergies between these two aspects of cultural innovation.
Q: What are the relative priorities for ABCD between excellence and accessibility?
PA: ‘Excellence’ and ‘elitism’ are sometimes confused in this debate. There is no evidence (is there?) that offering the best will somehow damage the mediocre. Which leads us to…
Q: How do high-level and formal artistic / formal skill translate into assets for a local community?
PA: There are always people, wherever they are, who can respond to the best on offer; what often helps here is to make the actual setting for events accessible, rather than compromising excellence. For instance, don’t assume that everyone is comfortable with normal box office arrangements (send them invitations!), make sure marketing, programmes etc explain what is happening (and for how long), be sure to avoid any hint of ‘them and us’ scenarios between artists and audience.
Q: How can such apparently free-flowing programmes engage in the formal bureaucratic set-up?
PA: With difficulty! But it has to be done… One way might be to move from the principle of local authority etc funding and official engagement for community-led action in specific projects, to that of core funding (which requires a degree of trust, but can still be entirely transparent), so that the base-line for committed community organisations is secure. This would allow them to put their energies into attracting external funding for ambitious / imaginative projects, rather than simply struggling to survive from one crisis to the next. Intellectual, structural and intuitive approaches are all required. The ‘trust solution’, of course, requires a degree of civic courage and serious leadership….
Q: How can ABCD be benchmarked / evaluated?
PA: Qualitative benchmarking is often more important for these activities than artificial quantification. The real challenge is to find appropriate indicators, including social audit factors, and to acknowledge fully their validity alongside the usual criteria or benchmarks (if and where even such exist).
Q: ABCD requires innovators. How can their work be sustained?
PA: There are innovators with commitment, and innovators who prefer to move on. Maybe one way to resolve the ‘sustainability problem’ is to have challenges in reserve for the committed innovators, and on the other hand to ensure that people who prefer routinisation are consistently drawn in – which is a good place anyway to start for many community involvement programmes.
Q: What is the ‘X-factor’ which gives any ABCD programme ‘charisma’?PA: You will only discover this by trial and error in a given situation! The important thing is to allow and positively support artists of all sorts who genuinely want to engage in their communities to do so. It is essential to have formal objectives and to track progress; but equally it is essential not to prescribe, and to encourage organic growth of community involvement. How can we know ‘what people want’ until they have had a real opportunity to try things for themselves? – Often artists are more intuitive about these things than their directors and managers! (This idea has the corollary that it is important that funded programmes have genuine artistic commitment and input from the start.)
If you don’t try, you will never know….
Hilary Burrage
Hon Chair, HOPES: The Hope Street Association
HOPES And The Two Hope Street Cathedrals
Hope Street, Liverpool, has an extraordinary range of special organisations and institutions along its kilometre length – including both of Liverpool’s great Cathedrals. This brief paper, presented at the Northern European Cathedrals Conference in Liverpool on 26 January 2005, explores some of the work which HOPES and the Cathedrals undertake.
Northern European Cathedrals Conference, 26 January 2005
Talk given in Liverpool Cathedral
The Hope Street Quarter, Liverpool
(Cultural Tourism as a Catalyst for Renaissance)
HOPES: The Hope Street Association was formed in the early 1990s as a result of widening the work of the voluntary group CAMPAM, the Campaign to Promote the Arts on Merseyside. HOPES is a registered ‘arts, education and regeneration’ charity with about 150 paying members (almost 50 of them local institutions etc). We also have a large number of ‘associate’ partners who do not actually subscribe to HOPES; no-one is ignored and all are welcome. HOPES has no formal funding except for grant-aid to support some artistic activities, and the organisation is run by an elected honorary Executive Committee – on which representatives of both Cathedrals are ex-officio the two Vice-Chairs – and by young graduate and local community volunteers.
Since we began our work has been divided into a number of different themes ~
Community and Cultural involvement:
We provided the secretariat for the 1998 Liverpool Windrush celebrations; we arrange small-scale (often musical) events in community settings, as well as open-invitation (free) social gatherings such as the HOPES Not-New-Year Party; we hold occasional debates on arts and regeneration topics; and, every year, we bring together a wide range of people to share the HOTFOOT Midsummer Concert at Philharmonic Hall to which many people in our various communities are invited. HOPES was chosen in 2,000 by the Millennium Commission from events across the nation as its exemplar Community Festival, and we gave a presentation in London on our activities to the Commissioners and the Secretary of State.
An example of close liaison and involvement with faith communities would be the ‘Faith in One City’ concerts of music by composers of given religious affiliation which our partner organisation Ensemble Liverpool (a group of fully professional recital musicians from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra) gave in both Cathedrals in 2004.
Renewal and Regeneration:
In the year 2,000 we published the Hope Street Papers, a dialogue on ‘Art at the Heart’ of inner-city regeneration. We have over the past ten years consistently lobbied, and indeed produced quite detailed plans, for the improvement of the public realm in our Quarter. The support of the Cathedrals in this process has been invaluable, and over time the City authorities have come to understand why such improvement is so important. We have now been told that work on these improvements will actually start in Spring 2005. HOPES is also leading the development of a public art route representing many interests in Hope Street.
Profile and Advocacy:
We have close links with many national organisations, such as the British Urban Regeneration Association, the Conservation Foundation, the National Campaign for the Arts and the St. William’s Foundation, as well as connections with government bodies such as the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, and regional and sub-regional groups like the North-West Business Leadership Forum, Liverpool Vision, ‘Stop the Rot’ and many others. We also work to nurture the knowledge economy in and around our Quarter, whether this be Big Science, large arts organisations, or smaller-scale bodies. This work is central to local economic growth and benefit.
Everything we do is focussed on building a genuinely inclusive and forward-looking sense of Community Spirit shared by all partners in the area between our two great Cathedrals!
Hilary Burrage,
Hon Chair, HOPES: The Hope Street Association
Regionalism And The Very High Skills Knowledge Economy
The very high skills Knowledge Economy is an international and expensive enterprise. Are high-level scientific skills enough to deliver complex science programmes? How do considerations of the knowledge economy fit into regional and sub-regional strategic planning? And who, on what basis, decides how and where to invest the very large funds required to deliver large-scale science and technology projects?
These notes are intended to invite discussion of current issues / praxis.
In a possibly reckless move, I have therefore summarised each point as a ‘Maxim’ – debate about these six Maxims will be welcome.
Which is the more challenging?
Is it to install, say, a number of large-scale commercial manufacturing units for similar but complex products in several sites across Europe? Or to bring to functionality, as other possible example, a particle accelerator (synchrotron) involving resources from many separate locations, but on one site?
And who, in each case, should lead the development of the programme?
Project management or scientific know-how?
Answers to these questions will depend on one’s previous experience and general perspective, but it might be supposed that generic project managers would be assigned to the first task, whilst there is a chance that senior scientists might be assigned to the second.
For some observers the first project has a mystique which is less pronounced than the second.
Almost certainly the first scenario will be led by straight business considerations, the bottom line, whilst the second might well be predicated upon general perceptions around the quality of the knowledge and skills which it is anticipated will result from, as well as contribute to, the development of the programme.
Complex risks and opportunities
But a sense of mystique around science will not always be appertain. A person taking the contrary view might argue that in both instances there are opportunities and risks which overall give these projects similar complexity.
This person might, for instance, be an experienced programme manager who recognises that even the most highly academically able people are essentially a resource which requires extremely skilled direction (for example, the hi-tech A380 airliner is designed and partially constructed across Europe and then assembled in Toulouse on a commercial basis)
New thinking and new funding?
Our experienced programme manager will also know that bringing together even an ambitious ‘normal business’ project is inevitably also a proposition which requires new thinking at some points.
But what may be less likely is that a person with this perspective is, at least historically, also one who decides how to invest very large amounts of public funding in taking forward Big Science projects.
Input or output?
Of course, these scenarios are parodies; but do they have a modicum of truth, alongside the stereotyping? Is managing science different?
Is there, or has there historically been, a largely unexamined general notion that the management where very high-level knowledge and skills is anticipated output should somehow be approached differently from that where these attributes are used mainly as input, usually for business / commercially-led objectives?
A look at the differential senior management of a range of public and private Very High Level Knowledge and Skills (henceforth VHLK&S) organisations suggests this assumption may indeed be the case; and history is littered with projects led by outstanding scientists, artists and academics which ended in disaster.
Maxim No. 1 is therefore:
VHLS&K project leadership and direction is not a badge of honour or a reward for diligence; it is a task and competence in its own right.
Appoint top people because of their proven project management training and skills, not because they are eminent in their own specialist field.
Contexts and frameworks
But we also need to ask how these possibly stereotyped (mis-)understandings about project leadership impinge when, to look at another scenario again, they relate to, say, public sector interests such as the nation’s health economy (i.e. to ‘health economies’ as under the aegis of strategic, regional and national formal Health Authorities).
What are the major frameworking elements when we consider delivery of VHLK&S in the overtly public and not-for-profit sectors? How can and should public funding be allocated?
Decisions with high impact
Such questions are not just of academic interest. Real decisions are constantly made about when, where and how to invest enormous amounts of money in widely varying projects which are recognised as involving visible VHLK&S.
Examples which come to mind of relatively recent practical decisions about U.K. investment in high skills and knowledge include:
· in the private sector, the funding of biotech, IT and major retail developments;
· in the higher education / business sectors, funding for physics, nanotechnologies, etc;
· in the public sector, funding for cancer research, the arts, tax and legal services – as well as, for instance, infrastructural developments in transport and other utilities.
Vacuum or special case?
In my experience these decisions have frequently been made in a vacuum from the contexts and impact they may have on local, regional and national economies; or, if a ‘special case’ for VHLK&S investment is made, it is predicated on ideas of less expenditure resulting in greater benefit in those locations (regions) where economies are most vulnerable.
Whilst it must be emphasised that VHLK&S is far more than ‘just’ science – it embraces, as we have seen, the whole gamut of economic and social activity, including business, the professions and the arts and culture, as well as more technological enterprises – a look at one important recent example of how decisions may have been made on very high Big Science funding illustrates this complexity.
Complex decisions: the Daresbury case
It is common knowledge that the campaign by the Daresbury Laboratory in the North West region of England to gain the DIAMOND synchrotron was not successful (it eventually went to the Rutherford Appleton Laboratories in Oxford, despite agitated pleas from a number of quarters).
As one who was involved in the political campaigning, my own view is that:
· the significance of regional issues was ultimately grasped too late, especially by regeneration and national governmental agencies;
· most politicians (but certainly not all) at every level did not understand the potential regional impact of this ‘academic’ bid (which they saw as distant from their core interests and sphere of influence), nor did some lead scientists see that they would need to work with politicians;
· there was too little timely collaboration between different academic institutions and, especially, with those other agencies which are differently funded (such as those which are hospital / health-based, as opposed to research embedded in higher education institutions – there is very little collaboration between science research commissioners in respectively the Departments of Trade and Industry, and of Health; indeed, their respective criteria and processes for the evaluation of research proposals present very different emphases);
· there was an understanding that perhaps some aspects of the ‘world-class’ basis of the bid would be challenging – but no clear plan for how demonstrate that required improvements could and would be made to guarantee bid viability (nor, indeed, much understanding that this might be a valid, if unusual, position from which to make a case at least politically, if not elsewhere); and
· there was certainly little public acknowledgement of how difficult it is for particular university departments in science outside the ‘Golden Triangle’ of Oxbridge and London to maintain their hard-won recognition of excellence – which of itself has huge impact on the regional economy.
And, in part because these issues were not adequately addressed, a great opportunity for the North West of England was lost at that time. (Happily, however, lessons have also subsequently and fruitfully been learned.)
Science across the private to public spectrum
It is also however interesting to see more generally how various VHLK&S projects and programmes are originated, funded and developed. As we move through the spectrum outlined above we see that the bottom line and stakeholder profile also moves.
For the private sector the imperative is shareholder interests, but by the time we reach the public sector the major interest is generally far more political and location-embedded.
Locational costs and benefits
One aspect of this shift is that the additional benefit of developments in particular locations (e.g. regions of the U.K.) to the localities themselves does indeed become more critical when the project is public sector funded, but such beneficial positioning is not without cost.
For instance, it may be claimed it is ‘cheaper’ to take a science project away from the Golden Triangle of Oxbridge and London. Such notions need to be examined very carefully, and it is perhaps more realistic when evaluating proposals to look at longer-term benefit, rather than at how much less the project might cost initially.
Maxim No. 2 is:
Add-on local or regional benefit from VHLK&S development does not come cheap; to achieve optimal results requires appropriate additional investment.
If you expect to gain special benefit on the basis of a ‘cut-price’ bid against others more attractively positioned, you will probably ultimately be disappointed – something some funders need also to appreciate.
Sector distribution and services
Beyond this lies also the issue of sector distribution. Is it enough simply to buy in one or a few sectors of the VHLK&S economy, and hope that these will attract the rest?
Will a sub-region with, say, a decent university (or two), orchestra and museum be able to make best advantage from the addition of just a bio-tech development or science park? Even if we blithely assume that somehow these other given, essential (and, importantly, also VHLK&S) cultural amenities can exist whether or not they have adequate support, the answer is probably that it will not.
The critical role of other specialist professional services must also be recognised. (Who will advise on intellectual property rights, compulsory purchase orders or start-up funding arrangements?)
Maxim No. 3 is thus:
Optimal synergy at local and regional levels results from VHLS&K in critical mass; it does not occur in dilution.
Single sector development alone probably will not work.
Politics and perceptions of (dis)advantage
There is however a quasi-political problem in terms of delivery of critical mass VHLK&S in some regional locations. Several of the U.K.’s regions are areas where educational and vocational levels are relatively low, and where local people may have little truck with any development not addressing direct issues around ‘deprivation’ and / or basic community, work and educational requirements.
For people in areas of disadvantage ideas of excellence and elitism may have similar (and distant) irrelevance or non-resonance. Yet the same decision-makers who must choose whether to attract VHLK&S to their region have to answer to (and perhaps seek re-election by) the very people who hold no candle for such esoteric activities.
Perceived priorities in areas of deprivation
The most challenged local and regional areas therefore suffer the double disadvantage both of particular economic vulnerabilities, and of populations who may not see attracting VHLK&S as a priority.
In such a position local / regional politicians and leaders need to be especially deft and persuasive, for instance, by nurturing a sense of pride of place which encourages local people really to value and use their VHLK&S cultural amenities.
This is a challenging task – a venture, e.g., in which I have been much involved in Liverpool’s Hope Street Cultural Quarter – helping disadvantaged communities to understand that less overtly visible VHLK&S developments such as I.T. and bio-tech are also critical to their local economies and the future wealth of the area.
Maxim No. 4 must be:
Effective decisions about local and regional investment in, and development of, VHLK&S requires wide experience, energy, vision and leadership; it must be a team effort between the community and their decision-makers.
Making progress with VHLK&S requires re-location from one’s comfort zone – in taking things forward decision-makers must also take forward through transparency, example and dialogue the vision of the community at large.
Local talent and skills
These community contexts take us also, of course, to a special consideration – that of communities indigenous to a given location who have, or are acquiring, VHLS&K. Many of these will groups will include graduates from regional universities, or people who have migrated to the area because of particular employment opportunities.
This inward migration is especially likely to apply to people with skills of relevance to the public or not-for-profit sectors, such as health or the arts, where most professional salaries are relatively low.
Perceiving potential – or not?
Yet the significance of this pool of talent is frequently not appreciated by others in the locality; examples are often seen of parochial politicians who see students as a ‘nuisance’.
Then there are policy makers who believe that it is necessary only to track the entry point employment (‘destination’) for all graduates together, as if first degrees and Ph.D.’s were the same and can equally be retained by small-scale hothouses for ‘entrepreneurs’.
This is surely a vain hope in a context where the best way for the most highly trained and talented young people in the regions to double their incomes and gain high level experiences is simply to get a job in London…. and here we need to remember there is very little ‘balancing’ contra-flow of talent from the South East and M4/40 Corridors.
Maxim No. 5 is therefore:
Haemorrhage of VHLS&K from regional locations is a significant problem which must be adequately monitored and addressed; there is a likelihood that a ‘converse example’ may be set if serious and sustained efforts are not made to retain this talent across the board.
It is a serious mistake to imagine that a general regional policy of ‘keeping wages down’ to attract inward investment will not also result in the loss of many of the most talented to more lucrative and interesting employment elsewhere – with all the ‘messages’ this gives out to local people, whatever their levels of skill.
Sharing benefits
And this leads us to the final point in looking at the pay-off for regional investment in VHLK&S. The benefits of such investment must be shared by those who come with the required skills / knowledge, and those who are already indigenous to the location.
The responsibility for ensuring that this is so lies at every level of the local, regional and national body politic. Decent local amenities are a matter of local provision; sensible business and economic support services are often a (sub-)regional responsibility; and in the end serious infrastructural investment can only be made with the consent and facilitation of national government.
Aligning initiation and delivery
When all these elements (or planned future elements) are aligned everyone benefits. The evidence is that programmes of all sorts are more likely to succeed when initiation and delivery are seamless; and presumably this applies as much to regional renaissance through ac
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