The UK Industrial Strategy White Paper , was launched in November 2017 by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.  It includes examples, references and plans that embed and infer opportunities for Britain’s rural economies.  Rural stakeholders led by Defra worked hard to inform the final Strategy, including via a Workshop at the Rural Entrepreneurship Conference, Newcastle University in June 2017. 

On the 20^th March, Newcastle University’s Rural Enterprise UK team, with the support and participation of the UK Government’s Departments for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) hosted a Workshop for organisations and agencies active in England’s rural economies to explore and inform plans for implementing the UK Industrial Strategy.   The Workshop offered a mixture of presentations and discussions.  Close to 40 people drawn from national to local government organisations, economic and rural agencies, business groups and academics participated in the day. 

The workshop offered an overview and insight into key features of our rural economies and the UK Industrial Strategy, and evidence of rural firms’ performance and actions from recent small business surveys.  Discussions were triggered by the experience and suggestions from a Panel of public and private sector leaders about how rural areas and rural businesses can take up or shape the opportunities presented by the Industrial Strategy, and extended through focused debates in three breakout sessions covering Sector Deals and issues, Local Industrial Strategies, and the wider Business Environment and challenges. The presentations, summary and schedule programme of this workshop are available from this website. 

You can find the workshop schedule here, and the presentations and workshop summary here.