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The chapter sets out the framework and responses to devolution since the demise of the Regional Development Agencies and Government Regional Offices in 2010 and the slow emergence of two new key Combined Authorities for the North East. It illustrates how fragmentation and austerity are impacting on local government and public services. Taking stock of the 2019 local election results, it appears that local government is becoming weaker and more diverse in terms of its leadership and it poses the question of whether in 2020, the North East will be well-equipped to develop its new economic and social and environmental strategies for the next decade. The region must respond to the challenges of involvement in the Northern Powerhouse and increased competition for investment within the UK and Europe and attend to its widening disparities. This chapter argues for closer collaboration between local government and the private and third sectors to respond to the post-Brexit challenges and calls for stronger responses to national finance and the procurement of new replacement funds for regeneration and development and Industrial Strategy.

Will the Northern Powerhouse bring a new deal for the North East region? Can the region respond to the challenges ahead now with Brexit? Can one still consider the North East as one region or does the rise of two Combined Authorities demand a rethink?

The conclusions discuss developments brought about by the replacement of European funding – the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and the debates on the new Industrial Strategy Challenge and how to respond to the new Town Challenge Funds. It considers what is needed to strengthen the role of local and regional public services in the decade ahead in the region. Policies and priorities need to change, and new partnerships are needed to tackle ever growing inequalities. New interdisciplinary challenges must face demands to accelerate the low carbon economy and bring new hope to non-metropolitan communities and towns. How best to strengthen the core city role of Newcastle-Gateshead? The question remains whether the governance framework fits the Challenges which lie ahead in the post-Brexit age.

In the UK regions that are structurally more vulnerable are less able to respond to economic shocks (McCann, 2017). An economic downturn for a poorer region like the North East of England (Jenkins, Pike, & Tomaney, 2019) will mean it enters recession earlier and emerges from recession later than significantly wealthier regions like London and South East region in England or Amsterdam City region in the Netherlands. We ask, what can be done to improve the impact of policy interventions that support and develop weaker regional economies? Behind this chapter sit two elements of research study: a question, which asks, what if you develop a “great” policy, that is well researched and designed; however, it fails because the people who deliver it don’t have the right culture, values, or knowledge? The second element is that the authors are interested in a range of factors that affect not only policy implementation including entrepreneurship but also economic culture and social capital, looking at the problem from different disciplinary viewpoints (Baker & Welter, 2018). This chapter makes a comparative study between the North East of England and the Amsterdam City region to explore how policy implementation might be improved as other factors of place cannot be easily altered, these factors include major infrastructure, political systems, and budgetary control as well as overall economic wealth. What this means is that practical research and studies have to find factors that can be improved in order to achieve change and a greater economic impact on Places in this context, the North East of England.

The North East has five universities: Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Teesside and Sunderland as well as over 20 colleges. The five universities in the region employ over 14,000 staff and generate another 15,000 jobs through their activities (Universities UK, 2014). In total their activities generate gross value added (GVA) of nearly £1.6 billion, equivalent to 3.8% of the total 2011 North East GVA (Universities UK, 2014). This is higher than in any other region of England meaning that any post-Brexit funding threat to the UK university sector represents a disproportionately greater threat to the North East economy.

This chapter looks specifically at the opportunities and threats for teaching and research of public administration and public services within the North East as a consequence of Brexit. Potential threats include the impact of any reduction in European funding (particularly research funding); reduction in the number of European students and reduction in the number of European staff working at universities in the North East. This chapter concludes by making the case for greater collaboration in teaching and research across UK and European universities. Irrespective of the final result of Brexit, pan-European research and teaching of public administration seems needed now more than ever. Northumbria University has a unique place within the North East region as a centre of expertise in public administration and public leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a three‐year PMI2 project for the British Council in 2008, one of seven to develop and strengthen partnerships with Chinese institutions in employability and entrepreneurship. Involving a partnership between Leeds Metropolitan University England and the Zhejiang University of Technology Hangzhou, China, the aim has been to analyse the Hangzhou and Zhejiang economies and examine current Chinese company requirements for skills and talent and their implications for teaching and learning and graduate supply. This was intended to strengthen the existing partnerships at a civic level between Leeds and Hangzhou and the successful MA in Trade and Finance run by the two universities.

The paper draws on preliminary interview studies in China of Hangzhou companies in different industrial sectors to analyse the skill and talent needs of such companies, their demands for graduate talent in particular and their views about the adequacy of the supply of that talent from local and national universities.

The paper clarifies the relationship between talent demand and supply in China, especially with regard to graduate talent, and presents an original analysis of the skill needs of the Hangzhou economy.

The paper suggests ways in which universities in Zhejiang and China generally could strengthen their engagement with businesses over talent demand and supply, and how they could develop courses and programmes that more effectively bridge the gap between universities and businesses.

The Institute for Local Government is a research and knowledge exchange partnership which was established to facilitate collaboration between some of the North East’s major public sector institutions and its academic community drawn from the region’s Universities.

This chapter presents a summary and reflection on its roles, activities, funding, outputs and outcomes, operational experience, the problems of long-term sustainability and the lessons that can be drawn from this pioneering initiative in the North East throughout the last decade and the implications for the next decade.