The Humber Industrial Cluster Plan project team met on 31 January for an update from suppliers ERM, along with colleagues from Sheffield Hallam University, who provided feedback and progress on the study into Societal and Cultural Challenges and Social Innovation.
The Humber Industrial Cluster Plan project team met on 31 January for an update from suppliers ERM, along with colleagues from Sheffield Hallam University, who provided feedback and progress on the study into Societal and Cultural Challenges and Social Innovation.
The HICP project team heard detailed progress on the literature review and stakeholder mapping tasks in the project. Firstly, the Humber region population has been examined by age, birthplace, ethnicity and religion. It is important to understand these dynamics alongside employment and education factors when planning how to engage the community in stakeholder workshops and interviews.
The literature review has been extensive and identified social challenges and opportunities, including the importance of making the economic case for industrial decarbonisation, ensuring fair distribution of benefits and understanding both supply and demand impacts such as how behavioural changes, in how we buy, use and dispose of products, influence our understanding of industrial decarbonisation.
The team at ERM has prepared and ranked stakeholders that are important in the next stage of the study recognising that so far there has been only limited engagement with community stakeholders in the region. This work represents the starting place for development of approaches to engaging local stakeholders from an inclusive base.
Vicky Copeman, Project Director, ERM said “The literature review did not identify any Humber centric work that has been undertaken related to social and cultural factors that may affect the public’s response to industrial decarbonisation. We believe that it is important to approach this study from a Humber centric view point and recognize that there may be differing perspectives related to cultural and social backgrounds and perspectives. As we go forward we hope to hear a range of voices that together represent the Humber.”
Saj Dahal, Lead Analyst, HEY LEP said ‘We are working closely with our Lot 4 supplier to ensure that we plan and execute stakeholder engagement tasks in March and June that are focused, inclusive and above all valuable to the development of a robust social and cultural view of the Humber to feed into the final cluster plan’.
